The Broken Heart
by VMarron
Summary: An alternate universe version of One Tree Hill. An attempt to re-tell the themes of the show with some re-invention and changing some of the significant 'decision points' presented in the canon television series. The story begins where Season 1, Episode One would have started off and goes from there. Expects to present the majority of the plots from canon, with new 'flavors'.
1. Pilot

Author's Note - What I have intended is a re-write of the One Tree Hill story utilizing the canon characters and doing my best to stay true to what originally drew me to them as characters, but changing some things, reinventing others and focusing on significant 'choice' points as I've come to call them as I've watched the series on Netflix. I hope if you're reading this, that you end up enjoying my work and my take on re-writing One Tree Hill. Yours, V Marron.

Disclaimer - I own nothing related to One Tree Hill. I have no money and if sued will simply fade into thin air. No canon characters belong to me, obviously, and I'm obviously taking liberty with them in order to write a fanfiction, with no intent of monetary gain, etc, ad nauseum. Again, I have no monies.

Chapter One

_"__Remember tonight, for it is the beginning of always."  
_ - Dante

He was a harmless enough kid, a little short maybe, overweight by some depending on which reference you consulted. He wore glasses, and his family wasn't rich so it was the same sets of clothes every couple of weeks. There wasn't anything that you'd think would scream out that he was someone to be bullied, but even if you couldn't see it or really put your finger on it, there it was.

Jimmy Edwards was in the middle of the E hallway at Tree Hill High School, and he was surrounded by the Ravens, basketball players, that is. Leading the pack was Nathan Scott, local sports hero and descended from the great Dan Scott. Of course, normally to a boy in Jimmy's situation, the stereotype would have us believe that he didn't care about sports, nor knew anything about them. The sad irony here was that along with his best friend, "Mouth" McFadden, Jimmy had big dreams of being a sports announcer someday.

Jimmy couldn't remember now, even just a few seconds later what he had done to warrant this round of abuse. He'd been walking with his eyes down, hadn't bumped into anyone, hadn't spoken up when he shouldn't have, so why were they tormenting him? He just wanted to go to English, his last class of the day before he could escape Tree Hill and go home for the day. He just wanted it to end.

"Loser!"

"Dweeb!"

"Fat ass." The insults kept coming. He could handle those, but it never seemed to stay at just that. With a crash the books and binder he'd been clutching like a shield to his chest were ripped from his hands and scattered across the floor in the hallway. They had become like a car accident in the middle of the road, with other students craning their necks to watch but just continuing on by, not a person intervening.

He tried to bend down and pick up his books. Nathan kicked the big white binder away from him again and as he lunged after it, his glasses fell to the ground and he heard a sickening crunch as another Raven stepped on them.

"Leave him alone." A curt, laced with venom voice cut through the commotion of the E hallway at Tree Hill High, and it all seemed to stop for a minute. Jimmy looked up from the floor, his vision blurry without his glasses and made out the wiry frame of Lucas Scott, Nathan Scott's illegitimate older brother. Nathan and the other basketball players standing around him stopped with Jimmy and paid attention to the new target, like a pack of animals that had just found bigger prey to bring down.

As if he'd been hiding just nearby, "Mouth" was next to Jimmy on the floor, helping him collect his books and binder. He softly grabbed his friend's glasses and extended them to Jimmy, who placed them on his face and sighed, ready to cry from anger and frustration as he got to one knee and then pushed himself up again as "Mouth" stood next to him.

"Yeah? And what are you going to do about it, Bastard?" Nathan took a menacing step forwards towards Lucas, letting his own backpack drop off to the side. He thought he wanted this fight, and in the middle of the school with everyone watching? What better venue to humiliate Lucas, who without ever trying, had become Nathan's one and only real rival.

"You ok Jimmy?" Lucas looked past Nathan and to his friends, Jimmy and "Mouth" who now stood behind the group of jocks, when Jimmy nodded and "Mouth" made to lead him away from scene, off to sixth period English, Lucas looked back to Nathan.

"Nothing." He shook his head and sighed and the scene was over, or it might have been had Lucas known what was coming next. One of the players, a senior, a starter by virtue of his about to graduate status and the kind of person who couldn't handle any kind of challenge to his authority took the three long steps between them as Lucas had made to turn away and raised back his right arm and crashed it across Lucas' face and sent the blonde young man careening to the floor with the sucker punch.

In a moment, Nathan was just watching as his teammates joined the fracas and were all over Lucas, punching and kicking and hitting as no one came to save Lucas as he had saved Jimmy, it only stopped when the thunderous voice of an old basketball coach boomed in the hallway and the four players looked up, a wild look in their eyes but stopped by the authority in the man's voice.

Coach "Whitey" Durham had always been a man's man, an old gritty basketball coach from a bygone age that had always only wanted to teach the boys more than just how to run a full court press and put a ball through a hoop. He'd always told his dearly departed Camilla that it was 'more than basketball'. More than basketball indeed; as he saw four of his seniors, three of them starters standing over one boy, beating him bloody.

"ALL OF YOU, IN THE GYM." He howled at Nathan and the other basketball players, who took off meekly at his barking. He walked over to Lucas, who was on his knees now, angrily putting his books back into his green book bag, wiping the dust and what other debris he could off of his clothes.

"Are you alright son?" He asked Lucas quietly, as the other students mingling in the hallway looked on. Lucas looked up at him, his face already showing where it would have bruises,

"I'm fine." He spat out, spit and blood coming out without thought. It wasn't that he was spitting at the coach, his lip was busted and split down the middle and he happened to have blood and spit in his mouth. The old coach shook his head, looked around at the crowd that was still present and noticed one of the girls he recognized as a cheerleader,

"You." He pointed at her, she looked around confused for a moment,

"Yes, you. Get him to the nurse's office." He reached for Lucas under one arm and helped the young man to his feet.

"I said I was fine coach." Lucas protested, re-shouldering his backpack and stepping back away from the old man. Whitey shook his head grimly, his jaw set firmly and a fierce grimace on his face.

"Listen, son, I wasn't asking her to take you. I was telling. And I'm telling you. I'll be along to talk to you once I'm done with those thugs." He reached out a put a hand on Lucas' shoulder,

"It was a good thing you did. Now don't be an idiot."

* * *

The four seniors and Nathan were waiting in the gym, Nathan was sitting on the first row of the bleachers, his head bowed and in his hands. This couldn't be good. He hadn't put a hand on Lucas, but he was sure he was going to go down all the same for this one. He didn't see how his father could get him out of this one, and honestly, he wasn't sure if he wanted him to.

It had been harmless. They had picked on Jimmy Edwards what must have been a million times. It didn't surprise him that Lucas had intervened; it did surprise him how his teammates had reacted. It was like something had snapped inside them, or maybe it had just come out, instead of being something that had to snap. The gym doors slammed home and Coach Durham came storming in, beside himself with rage.

"Coach, we just.."

"You shut the hell up and listen to me." He cut the first protest off at the head, glaring the indignant senior back into submission, cowing him to a place sitting next to Nathan on the bleachers. The coach stayed silent for what seemed like hours, but perhaps was only minutes, his hands in his pockets, his head down.

"You'll be lucky if you don't all go to jail, and I think you should. What are you doing? Who do you think you are?" The coach continued his diatribe, turning his back on the students and pacing away from them.

"Coach, I didn't do anything." Nathan got to his feet, his fear of Coach outweighing his fear of his teammates, his fear of his own image. That got Whitey to turn around slowly, bringing his iron stare onto Nathan Scott.

"You didn't do anything, Nathan? Or you didn't stop anything? Which one would you rather claim today?" Coach shook his head, completely beside himself with the situation. He looked at the other four boys,

"So you vagabonds know, the Principal will have already called the police. They'll be here shortly, and you'll be going with them. Before that, I need you to go clean out your lockers. You don't play for me anymore."

"Coach?" Nathan questioned him in a soft, scared voice.

"Not you, idiot. You didn't do anything and I saw ya just standing there. You're more like your father than I'd care to admit." He shook his head and walked away from the five young men, the gym door slamming shut behind him again.

* * *

Her name was Brooke Davis, and she was watching the blonde boy furtively from where she sat next to him in the small waiting room adjacent to the nurse's office. She had gone to the cafeteria to get ice to put on Lucas' face, and had left him alone with Brooke there. She knew who he was, but they had never really talked before and she felt that they were from different crowds of people entirely.

"I'm sorry." She said quietly, in a voice just above a whisper, not really sure what to say at all, feeling stupid as she said it, but she was more uncomfortable with the silence. The whole thing almost embarrassed her, as she went about worried about being popular and cool boys and their parties, and the cool boys had just tormented one person and brutalized another. It made her unsure about things.

He looked over at her then, his right eye nearly swollen shut, his lip split and his face turning different shades of black and blue already but he didn't say anything,

"I just, I just…" She continued trying to find something to say, something that would make this whole situation less uncomfortable. What was taking the nurse so long, or Coach? Why was she having to sit here with Lucas Scott after what just happened? She didn't even know him. He coughed then and she nearly jumped out of her seat, it was a ragged and then she realized that he was laughing, albeit painfully.

She watched him, silent and in a sort of horror at what she was a witness to.

"Why did you do it?" She asked.

"One man with courage is a majority."

"I don't, I don't understand." He sighed and breathed in deeply before he explained,

"Thomas Jefferson said that." He stopped, and turned his head looking at her with his intense blue eyes,

"It means that even if everyone else is doing something wrong, one person doing the right thing still matters. Jimmy is my friend." Brooke was silent for a few moments after that, looking down nervously at her hands and had looked up again and was about to say something to him when the nurse came back in with a bag filled with ice, a small white towel and went right to work placing it on the side of Lucas' face.

"Here, I've got him now Miss Davis. Thank you." The kind old nurse said quietly,

"You've got to hold this for twenty minutes, young man." She instructed Lucas, letting him take hold of the bag of ice. Without explanation, as Brooke got up from where she was sitting, she leaned over and kissed Lucas gently on his opposite cheek, before leaving without a word.

"Girlfriend?" The nurse asked with a gleam in her eyes, curious, to which Lucas only shook his head. The nurse nodded solemnly,

"Well, alright. I've called your mother and she's on her way to come get you. Coach caught me in the hallway and said that he wanted to come speak to you also, so if you'll just wait here. Do you want anything for the pain?"

The young man shook his head,

"No, that's okay Mrs. Strybos." The older woman nodded and turned to walk into her office to fill out some paperwork about the whole incident, but looked back over her shoulder before she stepped out of view,

"It was a good thing you did, Lucas Scott."

* * *

Outside the nurse's office Brooke saw the boy from the hallway and his friend, a short skinny boy with brown hair that stood nearly straight up. The skinnier one asked,

"Is he ok?" That took Brooke for a pause, her mind was somewhere else and she hadn't expected to talk to anyone else on her way to her last class of the day. She had actually already decided to skip it, as the day had gotten way too serious for her to handle well. She looked at the skinny young man blankly before he kept talking,

"Oh, I'm Mouth. Lucas's friend, this is Jimmy." He gestured to Jimmy with a shrug of his shoulder,

"I'm Brooke Davis..Mouth?" She glanced back over her shoulder towards the nurse's office.

"That's my nickname. Marvin McFadden, at your service." She managed a weak smile,

"That was my nickname at camp." He looked at her with his head cocked to the side for a moment,

"Because I slept with my mouth open." She elaborated.

"Ah." Mouth nodded, before gesturing with his head towards the nurse's office.

"So is Lucas ok?" Brooke nodded,

"Yeah, I think he's going to be ok." Mouth and Jimmy were about to make to go into the nurse's office after Lucas when Coach Durham came barreling down the hallway,

"He better be with the nurse young lady." Brooke nodded weakly in response to the Coach, before sighing heavily one time and then walking away from all of them down the hallway, her gaze cast down at the ground, deep in thought.

* * *

"How ya doing kid?" Coach asked as he stepped into the nurses office, having left Mouth and Jimmy waiting outside.

"Face hurts." Lucas answered briskly, barely looking up at Coach from the floor.

"I know how you must be feeling. Angry, mad, scared and upset. Your face and body hurt I'm sure, and maybe your pride a little.." At that Lucas looked up completely,

"Pride?" The coach nodded sagely to Lucas, as if he knew something as an old man that maybe the teen-ager couldn't grasp just yet, a kernel of wisdom about honesty and truth and yes, pride.

"Yes, pride son. You got beat up. It didn't look like a fair fight by any means, but that doesn't mean you got beat up any less. Everyone in school saw it happen, your friends, that pretty girl that was in here, and Nathan."

"And you're trying to help me feel better?" Lucas asked, incredulous, wondering how much worse this day could really get. The coach shook his head and chuckled in his aged, hearty manner.

"Yes. If you aren't honest about something, it can control you in ways that you don't understand. You tell a lie, you start telling more lies to control that one, and in the end you're just wrapped up in them. You call something a name that it isn't; you make it into something it isn't. To call this anything else, Lucas, gives it a power it shouldn't have." There was a silence between the two then for several long moments before the door knocked and Karen Roe, Lucas's mother stepped into the nurses' office. Coach looked up,

"Ah, Karen I was wondering when you'd get here. Sorry about all this. Good to see you." He said, before he slid sideways past her out of the nurse's office, leaving her alone with her son.

"Oh my God. Lucas, are you alright?" She exclaimed immediately, rushing to him and putting her arms around him. She clutched her tightly, not giving him the chance to answer for a few moments before she pulled back and took a nice long look at his face and bruises.

"They arrested the guys who did it Mom. I'm ok. Really, I'm ok. I don't want you to worry." He said quietly, grimacing as he spoke. The split lip was starting to harden and get stiff, making speech difficult again. She leaned forward and kissed him on the forehead,

"Ok. I'm going to take you home. The principal said it was alright if you didn't come back to school again, until Monday. So you can stay home tomorrow. I'll take the day off.." He interrupted her then,

"No Mom, I don't want to stay home." He protested, thinking about what the basketball coach had said. He didn't want to be just another victim of Nathan and his cronies, and if he stayed home, that's exactly what he would be. He wasn't going to call himself that and give him that kind of power. No, he'd walk around school, bruises and everything.

"But Lucas…" He shook his head again,

"No Mom, I'm not going to stay home after today." She sighed and nodded her head, a sad smile creasing her lips.

"You ready to go?" He nodded,

"Yeah."

* * *

The river court was a sort of pristine place to some in Tree Hill, a nondescript public basketball court on the edge of the river that gave it its name. A playground for the athletically inclined, with picnic tables on one side and open grass all around for people to pull their cars right up to courtside. Price of admission was simply getting there, and the requirements to play were simply to show up. It was the river court.

"Mouth" McFadden, Jimmy Edwards, "Junk" Moretti, Fergie Thompson and "Skills" Taylor were all at the river court later that day, after school, after that last period of English class. The bullying that Jimmy had been a victim of had been nearly completely overlooked by the school officials in light of what had happened to Lucas, and Jimmy wasn't sure how he felt about that. It almost seemed to him as if they were addressing the symptoms, not the cause. Or maybe Lucas was just a better victim to focus on.

Skills dribbled the ball twice between his legs, took a hard step to his right before pulling back and letting the ball flip off of his fingertips, settling into the basket with a gentle swoosh.

"And that's game! Skills takes it with a score of twenty one, to twelve to eight in our three way bonanza." Mouth announced, the microphone for his podcast recordings held up to his mouth. Jimmy sighed heavily next to him,

"Kind of hard to really care about basketball today, isn't it Mouth?" Skills and the other two playing had already started walking over when Jimmy spoke, and it was Skills who spoke up first,

"Yeah, has anyone seen or talked to Luke since school?" A round of uncomfortable silence followed as everyone looked at each-other. Jimmy shook his head and looked down and away from everyone, didn't anyone care about him? Sitting there on the small picnic bench next to Mouth and in the middle of everyone else, Jimmy had never felt so alone.

* * *

She had medium length curly blonde hair, the walls in her bedroom were covered with her drawings, some happy, some sad. Mostly sad, she was staring up at the wall when she heard footsteps coming from down the hallway. There was a knock at the door, and then Brooke was standing just inside her room. She took a few steps, and then flopped down on the bed next to her.

"Missed you after school today B Davis." Peyton Sawyer said quietly, turning her head to look at her friend for a moment before looking up at the ceiling again.

"Yeah, I skipped sixth period." Brooke explained quietly, playing uncomfortably with her hands on her stomach.

"Did you hear about what happened today? Nathan is crazy about it. Half the team pretty much got kicked out of school today." After Peyton's comment, Brooke nodded for a moment before whispering quietly.

"I was there." At that, Peyton rolled over and was nearly sitting and leaning over Brooke simultaneously,

"Oh my god Brooke, what happened?"

"I was just at my locker, Nathan and his loser friends were messing with some kid with glasses, I don't even know his name and then Nathan's brother comes up and tells them to stop and then just out of nowhere it's this big fight in the hallway,"

"Oh god." Peyton whispered before Brooke looked at her and shook her head,

"And oh no, it doesn't end there. So Coach Durham comes up and makes me take him to the nurse's office,"

"Coach had to go to the nurse's office?"

"No! He made me take Nathan's brother." Peyton sat back against the headboard and sunk back into then, folding her arms across her chest.

"Oh."

"Yeah, big oh. Does Nathan ever talk about him?" Brooke asked quietly, thinking about the boy with the bruised face and blonde hair, the boy with his quote about courage. If she was perfectly honest with herself, she'd been thinking about it and him ever since she had left school that day. Peyton shook her head,

"No, not really to me. I mean, it has deep dark family secret drama written all over it."

"He said something to me that's been bothering me." Peyton looked over again at Brooke at her quiet words,

"Yeah?"

"He said, one man with courage is a majority."

"He just said that?"

"Well, he said some important guy said it. He made this point about how even when everyone is doing something wrong, if one person does the right thing, then they're the majority or whatever." She took a deep breath in and then breathed it out forcefully,

"Got to you huh? You're getting deep on me Brooke Davis." She questioned softy, getting up from where she was on her bed and leaning over to the computer to switch off her webcam.

"It's just, we're popular right? And that's like the majority? And Nathan's popular, but he's a jerk. Lucas isn't popular, but was he right today? So that makes him the majority, but isn't what's popular the majority? So does that make us wrong?" Peyton moved back over to Brooke and leaned over the bed, putting her arms around her best friend of eight years and hugging her close, pressing Brooke's cheek up against the crook of her neck,

"He's just a stupid boy with a stupid quote, Brooke. You're amazing, and you know that." Brooke reached her hand up and patted and then took hold of Peyton's arm,

"Yeah, you're right. I am awesome. You're going with me to Wilmington to shop tomorrow, right?" She asked, changing the subject and getting up from the bed, meandering over to Peyton's closet.

Some hours later, Peyton was sitting in front of her computer, the webcam on, Disturbed playing in the background and doodling on a picture she had been drawing of herself for sometime, it was her curly blonde hair, her pretty smile, and a rectangular hole in her chest where her heart should be. Lucas was just a stupid boy with a quote, wasn't he?

_In a world beyond controlling  
Are you going to deny the savior  
In front of your eyes  
Stare into the night  
Power beyond containing  
Are you going to remain a slave for  
The rest of your life  
Give into the night_


	2. You've Got A Heart As Loud As Lions

**Additional Author's Note - **I'm going in and using Fanfic's built in horizontal lines to break up the points of focus some so the story is easier to follow, since it doesn't keep the tab formatting from Microsoft Office. Please PM or Review if you have any thoughts about how the writing is going.

**Author's Note** - I reached 11 pages on Microsoft Word with chapter 1, and decided with where I had taken one of the vignettes, it was a good place to tie up that chapter. That said, as I continue to write and explore the characters its always possible I might go back and 'retcon' things when it seems right or better to do so. I hope you're still reading, I've appreciated all the reviews and PMs I've gotten about this work and hope to continue getting them. Yours, V Marron.

Chapter 2

_"You've got the light to fight the shadows / so stop hiding it away." - Emeli Sande_

It was Friday morning, and everybody was back at school after the muted horror of the day before. High school is traditionally full of bluster and threats, every day interactions that adults take for granted and treat them for what they are, temporary, but for those with all the world before them, sometimes tomorrow is simply too far away and today has to matter more than you or I think it should.

And so there it was, everyone at school knew about it and in the hush of their cliques, on instant messenger the night before or in muted whispers as homeroom period started at the beginning of the day, it was discussed. The boy who was everything that any high school jock would want to be, Nathan Scott, the boy that had stood up, Lucas Scott, and the boy that everyone had forgot it seemed, Jimmy Edwards. All three of them were at school the next day.

There is some protection in routine, something safe about the perfectly ordinary, even something comforting about the horridly ordinary, the perpetual cycle that high school seems to be. The sports may change, and the subjects may alter some and the hair styles and clothing fads come and go, but high school is much the same for someone today as it was forty years ago. It is in this routine that Tree Hill has fallen into, the backdrop of the lives that are forged within its halls.

Thirty three years of routine were catching up with Coach Brian "Whitey" Durham as he sat in his office. He'd been told this morning by the Principal, that Dan Scott, one Nathan Scott's father would be coming by to visit him this morning regarding the incident and the subsequent arrest, suspension and transfer of four key members of the Ravens basketball team. One might question why one parent could demand such an audience, Whitey was a busy man with a teaching load on top of his responsibilities as the basketball coach, but the Principal had told him to be waiting in his office for Dan Scott.

He had the morning newspaper folded up in his hands when Dan entered the office without so much as a courtesy knock on the door. With a face creased by age and a somewhat permanent frown on his face, Whitey looked up and saw Dan and nearly laughed. As much had changed in the seventeen years since Dan Scott had last played for the Ravens, nothing had changed. He still just saw an angry young man, unhappy with himself standing in his doorway, insisting that it be his way or the highway.

"Who do you think you are!?" Dan demanded without even the customary 'hi coach' that Whitey usually expected from most visitors, even those that he knew weren't happy to see him. With the spiteful grin that only the truly salty with age can muster, Whitey tapped the wooden nameplate that stood at the edge of his desk.

"I believe my desk is labeled, Danny." He said coolly, very deliberately setting the newspaper down on his desk. He cracked his knuckles together, looked down at the newspaper for a moment and then back to Dan Scott.

"How can you suspend half the starting lineup? Now Nathan's going to be double and triple teamed all year, how is he supposed to win state for you with that all season?" Dan continued, his voice rising with every word, the veins in his neck bulging. It occurred to Whitey that Dan was wearing a very nice, well-tailored charcoal suit. He wondered if he'd gotten it here in Tree Hill, or elsewhere.

"Easy. You know you're in here asking the wrong questions, concerned about the wrong things, son." Whitey replied, shaking his head.

"I'm here for my son. You're trying to ruin his season, all because you can't get back at me anymore, so you're going to punish him." That bought a long moment of silence from the older man, his shoulders raised up and down with a heavy gulp of air.

"You know Danny, only you could come in here and be this angry about the wrong son. Lucas is your son too, ain't he? Seems to me he stood down a bunch of low down, good for nothing bullies – Your precious Nathan included, who by the way, is lucky I haven't kicked HIM off the team too. But I don't see the point of punishing the son for the father, when he's just what you've made him into."

"And what's that supposed to mean, Whitey? Hmm? Lucas isn't my son. He shouldn't have my name and I've had nothing to do with him." Whitey laughed sadly, shaking his head.

"And that's supposed to exonerate you somehow? You say that like it makes you somehow less wrong here. After what Lucas did yesterday, if he was my boy I'd be claiming him. I'd be saying that he did what he did because of the man I'd taught him to be. I don't even know him, Dan. Doesn't play for me, but I'm proud of him anyways." There was ice and a sense of ruthlessness in Dan's voice when he replied next,

"And you're right on one count, Whitey. Lucas doesn't play for you. Nathan does, so maybe that's which one of my sons you should be worried about, instead of Lucas. You need players now, Nathan more than ever, and you don't have anyone on the junior varsity that can step up to help out Nathan." The old coach nodded, put his hand to his chin and made a show of being deep in thought,

"You know, you're right, Danny. I've got this all wrong." He shook his head then, breathing out, giving every impression that he'd had some sort of epiphany, a 'coming to Danny', if you will.

"Damn right you know I'm right, Coach." Dan continued, sensing that he had the advantage, that he'd finally gotten through to the old coot after all these years.

"I should put Lucas on the team." Whitey nodded again, before continuing,

"You're damn right I should put him on the team. Wonder why I didn't think of it before, after all, he is Dan Scott's son."

"You wouldn't." Lethal venom in Dan's voice.

"The embarrassment, the public ridicule, the comparison to Nathan, it won't be fair to him, or to Karen to put them through that." He continued, beyond flabbergasted at the sacrilege that Whitey was proposing.

"You want to talk about something embarrassing, Danny? Ask yourself why your son stood by and watched four other boys attack and beat his own brother senseless, and then talk to me about what's embarrassing."

* * *

Mr. Cutter was one of the freshman and junior level English teachers, and for everyone that wasn't taking advanced placement English, he usually ended up being their teacher at one point or another in their high school career. He was the kind of teacher that acknowledge the sense of self that most high-schoolers are trying to cultivate, the idea that they're 'grown up' now and can make their own decisions, have big important thoughts and dreams and everything else. Most students loved him for it, and occasionally they'd have the opportunity to discover that as much as it freed them from the normal constraints of childhood, it also bound them to the harsh rule of adulthood and reality.

Haley really was doing her best to pay attention in class, but she found it nearly impossible. All throughout the school day, she'd been trying to talk to Lucas, for heaven's sake they were best friends, but it was if he was avoiding everyone today. Karen had told her about what had happened at the café the night before and she'd gone home with Karen after they'd closed up to see if Lucas was ok and he'd blown her off.

Ok, well maybe he hadn't blown her off, he just hadn't been very talkative, hadn't seemed to have an opinion at all about any of it. Just quiet, which wasn't like Lucas; he'd always seemed to have an opinion on everything and anything. So why not this?

"Miss James?" And there it was, like his name, Mr. Cutter's voice pierced Haley's frantic thought process as she sat staring the back of Lucas' head, wondering what it was he had squirrelled so deeply up in there.

"What do you think the author meant, with those lines we just read?" There was that awkward moment of silence, the flash of panic that comes across most any smart student's face when they realize they simply don't know the answer because they haven't been paying attention in the least, and they didn't even hear enough of the question to even fabricate enough of an answer to hide it.

"Um…" She stalled for time, desperate to avoid the embarrassment.

""Do you take pride in your hurt? Does it make you seem large and tragic? ...Well, think about it. Maybe you're playing a part on a great stage with only yourself as audience." It was Lucas who spoke up then, re-reading the lines from the novel they were reading as a class, John Steinbeck's East of Eden.

"I think what it means is that maybe when people truly hurt us, we think it was somehow done because they care about us. Or its some kind of test, where if maybe if were hurt the right way, they'd love us again, or care that they hurt us. But I think what the author is saying that obviously if they hurt you this bad, they aren't watching anymore anyways, so why bother?" He continued, answering the question for Haley. This gave Mr. Cutter a moment of pause, as he'd presented the question to Haley, not to Lucas. He looked at the young man for a long few moments, it had of course already made it all over the school and all the teachers knew about it.

As an English teacher, he found himself drawn to the idea all its own. Considered on its own merits, all the boy had done was invite a beating down on himself, but that was perhaps only to the illiterate eye. It was so much more than that, it was in a sense, heroic. He hadn't won some great battle, hadn't landed any blows in retaliation as far as anyone could tell, but he'd won nonetheless, even if it didn't feel like it just yet.

"Indeed, Mr. Scott, it could be taken that way. I think a common frustration that students have with Mr. Steinbeck's work, perhaps with any work really, is how many ways it can be taken. We have tests that tell us if we've interpreted it the same way some fogey old English teacher interpreted it years before you…" And this last comment brought a round of subdued laughter from the classroom, Mr. Cutter was well known for being self-effacing and honest about things, a trait the students may have loved him for.

"But what I want to impress upon you as best I can while I have the privilege to be your teacher is this; that literature is meant to inspire. I don't think Mr. Steinbeck wrote East of Eden because he had all the answers, but because he was looking for them, and if we're reading it now thinking it will somehow give us all the answers, well, I think it'd be wrong. As he said there is only one story, I want you to really start thinking when you read, but think for yourself." He let that linger on the air for a few moments, as the class seemed all at once look at their desks. Each more than a little uncomfortable with the consideration they'd just been given.

After a while, the class eventually ended when the school bell rang for the end of the day and after looking to Mr. Cutter for him to nod his agreement with the bell, the students almost as one all got up and left the class room. It was outside in the hallway that Haley pressed the issue with Lucas.

"Hey you." She said quietly, coming up next to him in the hallway, almost shoulder to shoulder as they walked away from the classroom.

"Hey." Ever eloquent, Haley thought as Lucas barely answered her question, much less looked at her. It wasn't like him to act like this, and she wondered if he had more bruises on him than anyone could see from the outside. It tore at her heart, to think that he was scared or embarrassed or hurting or anything because of what had happened yesterday.

"Talk to me, please." She reached out and grabbed his shoulder with her free hand, that wasn't holding her books. He pulled away from her abruptly and turned, looking at her, his gaze fierce.

"Haley. Stop. What do you want me to say? That I got my ass beat?" A crowd was starting to form by this point, drawn like high-schoolers usually are by loud voices and confrontation.

"That I'm okay? That I'm fine? Do you feel better knowing you've asked me? Does it make me feel good that the only person who stepped in for me was a teacher?!" Haley was caught completely off guard by the violence of his answer, the hate he said it all with.

"Geez Luke, I'm sorry… I just wanted to make sure you were ok."

"Well, I'm not okay Haley. Do you feel better now?" And then he turned, and stormed off down the hallway, his green backpack slung over one shoulder.

Haley was left standing there as the crowd that had gathered finally dispersed, heading off to the end of the school day, whether it was the bus, or walking home or to the student parking lot.

"Harsh." A soft voice came at Haley from behind, and wearing a Ravens cheerleader outfit, Brooke Davis with a red backpack slung over her shoulder walked slowly up to Haley. Haley cringed when she realized the voice was talking to her, and she turned around slowly to face it.

"You heard all of that?" Brooke nodded with a wince,

"Sorry, pretty much impossible not to. I know we don't talk much.."

"Or at all." Haley interjected; Brooke smiled uncomfortably and nodded,

"Well yeah, at all. But I saw what happened to him yesterday. It was pretty bad. Maybe he just needs some space?"

"I think he got plenty of that yesterday from everybody who just watched." Haley said coolly, not sure who she was more upset with, herself, or everyone else, and then she turned and left Brooke standing alone in the hallway.

* * *

They were standing in Keith Scott's garage, the small business that Keith had built up for himself and survived in the same town as his brother's more ubiquitous Dan Scott Motors. His personal favorite quip about the situation was that he liked to fix the crap that Dan was always putting out there, which he usually thought, applied to more than just cars.

"Hey Coach." He said, grabbing a small towel and wiping most of the grease from his hands and the patting the rest of it off onto his dungy blue coveralls. After wiping his hands off, he reached out his right hand to Whitey and gave him a firm handshake.

"Keith, how is business?" Coach Durham asked taking a slow look around the garage. Keith looked around himself,

"Business is pretty good. Lucas helping out sure makes it easier." That brought a heavy sigh from the old basketball coach as he settled into the conversation he was about to have with his old player and friend, Keith Scott.

"That's actually what I'm out here tonight to talk to you about."

"Business?" Keith questioned, unsure of what Whitey meant.

"About Lucas, I mean. You heard about what happened yesterday, I assume?" The coach asked, grabbing a chair from a nearby table in the garage and easing himself down into it. He had the thought that he was entirely too old to be out on a bye week Friday night recruiting boys to play for his basketball team. To which Keith nodded grimly and spoke simply,

"Yeah, I did. Haven't gotten a chance to talk to him yet. Karen says he's been mostly just holed up at the house. I figured that meant he needed some space to process what had happened, so I've been letting him be."

"Well, Dan came to talk to me about it." Whitey said, letting it hang in the air between them, laden with old hurts and battles.

"Yeah, and what did Dan have to say about it?"

"Well, he's mostly upset that Nathan is now going to be double and triple teamed all season, I think, is how he put it." That got Keith to laughing,

"Yeah, well, you know my brother Danny, always focusing on what's really important." He shook his head and turned back to the car he'd been working on, resting his hands on his hips. He looked back over his shoulder at Whitey,

"I'll come talk to you when I've talked to Lucas, let you know how he's doing, if you're worried about him?" Whitey shook his head,

"Well, you see Keith, I was hoping you'd do a bit more than that for me."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, Keith. I may have told Dan that I was going to put Lucas on the basketball team." Silence like a hammer fell between the two old friends then, Keith frowned and grimaced and gave a long 'mhmmm' to the whole suggestion and then turned back around completely to face Whitey with his arms folded across his chest,

"You can't be serious."

"Only if the boy can't play like his brother."

"He's better than Nathan." Whitey nodded then, with an impish smile.

"Good, you'll talk to him then about it?" To that Keith put his hands up, palms facing Whitey.

"I didn't say I'd do that, I didn't even say I think this is a good idea."

"But you do think it is." The old coach countered, before pressing the advantage.

"How many times have you come into my office and talked about watching him play at the river court? About how you've missed him playing organized, how you think it's a shame that he isn't on the team anyways?" Keith resigned himself to it, he knew that Whitey had him then, but there was still a wildcard.

"Ok, so even if I say I'll talk to him – which I haven't said yet, what about Karen?"

"What about her? If the boy can play like you say, he deserves the chance and she's his mother. She'll want what's best for him." Keith sighed and shook his head,

"You know it's more complicated than that. What about Dan? I mean, what about Lucas, after what happened at school?"

To all that the Coach nodded and sighed heavily and thought about deeply in front of Keith as the questions were asked,

"Well, Keith. I think if Lucas is good enough to play for me, he deserves the chance to. Could be good for him, truth is the team sure can use the help especially now, and maybe it won't be the worst thing in the world for Lucas and his brother to have a chance to interact. Wouldn't it be better for you if you and Dan got along?" Keith shook his head vehemently,

"You had me until the last line, Coach. Me and Dan?"

"What about it? He's still your brother. You can't tell me your life wouldn't be a little bit happier if you two weren't so miserable to each-other." Keith shook his head and walked away from Whitey, shaking his head a couple of more times and then looking down at the ground.

"I wished you'd have talked to me about this first, or maybe talked to Lucas, or Karen or anybody, Whitey."

"I think Lucas already spoke up for himself, Keith." Whitey said quietly with heavy breath before he stood up from the seat he'd taken and walked slowly over to Keith.

"I think you'll find he's the right sort of kid for this." He reached over, putting his hand on Keith's shoulder in a fatherly fashion,

"He stood up for that boy when he didn't have to, when he could have just walked away like everyone else did. What makes you think he won't stand up for himself? I'll give him a jersey, a fight worth having, a fight worth winning, Keith. He's about more than basketball, that much is clear, BUT, he deserves a chance for basketball to happen for him."

"All of this just for basketball, Whitey? Everything it will change? Everything it could cost Karen and Lucas, cost me?"

"No Keith. All of this for Lucas, and for Karen. Why should her son not get to shine? Why shouldn't he have all the same opportunities?"

* * *

The river court was empty. It was a late Friday night, which usually meant a party at one of the popular kid's houses. The Davis residence; or Nathan Scott's parents' beach house was another likely location in Tree Hill, North Carolina. It being a late Friday night also meant that Lucas Scott was alone with his thoughts, and everything that came along with that. And tonight he wasn't so sure he wanted that, after everything that happened. He knew that he wanted to be alone, but he wasn't sure why. He hadn't done anything wrong, but he felt so ashamed.

Ashamed. But why? Powerless was a better word for what he felt as he held the dim orange basketball in his hands and looked up at the basket. All his life, it had always just been so simple. You saw a hoop, you put the ball in it. When he had played football in the past, it had been easy - get the ball into the end zone. Catch it, throw it, run with it. It all came so naturally for him, sports, basketball.

Stepping up for his friend had always come naturally. He hadn't walked into the school that day hoping that he got the opportunity to get beat up for a friend. His knees came to a slight bent and then he rose up, the ball smoothly leaving his finger tips, his hand curled forward into the basket after his shot, just like Keith had taught him so many years ago. Swoosh. The ball went right into the basket. He sighed and jogged after the ball as it dropped to the ground and then bounced once before he put his hands back on it.

Even when nothing else did, the basketball still made sense. It always would he hoped. All he could hear was the quiet of the riving just flowing past, the eerie stillness of the late night air, the buzz of the streetlamps that lit the basketball court. He dribbled the ball twice to his right, crossed it low between his legs to his left hand and moved away from the basket, spinning and squaring up to the hoop in a smooth twist before the ball lofted again from his hands, careened off the backboard and slid effortlessly through the net. Two for two. He couldn't have put it to words probably, but it made him feel in control again. Powerful.

Then he heard the sound of a car crunching through the grass that surrounded the river court, and the unmistakable glare of headlights. He bounced the ball once off the court again in frustration, before he cradled the ball with his left arm, waiting to see who it was that was coming out to the river court in the middle of the night. They had to be there for him, the question being who knew he was here?


	3. Timshel, Thou Mayest or Thou Mayest Not

Chapter Three

_"Man has a choice, and its a choice that makes him a man."_

_-_John Steinbeck, East of Eden

A lifetime he hadn't lived, or so it felt. He wasn't stupid; he knew how he came off to people. How Whitey couldn't stand him, his brother despised him and his wife was working herself into an early grave on his account, as best he could tell.

No, Dan Scott wasn't a happy man, and he knew it. It didn't change anything, this self-awareness, because it had to be. He had to be what he had become. He had made a choice seventeen years ago, about Karen, about Deb, about himself and his whole life. In reality, it was his knee that had given him the opportunity to walk away from it himself. It had given out the beginning of his freshman season, and it just hadn't gotten better. Not the way it had been.

It's a feeling that only an athlete can really relate to, a jump shot that just never feels the same, the confidence that comes from mastery of one's body never returning, the idea that you can do anything put to the hard truth, of no, you can't anymore. That twinge in his knee anytime he put pressure on it to really drive on a basketball court like he had once. More simply put -the feeling that it's over, and that it will never be again.

And, a glass of rum and coke in his hand – half empty, his son's copy of East of Eden from school on his lap, he had been reading a quote he often thought about when he thought about Nathan, about how hard he had been pushing him ever since he was even just a little boy.

"…On one side you have warmth and companionship and sweet understanding, and on the other – cold, lonely greatness. There you make your choice. I'm glad I chose mediocrity, but how am I to say what reward might have come with the other? None of my children will be great either, except perhaps Tom. He's suffering over the choosing right now. It's a painful thing to watch. And somewhere in me I want him to say yes. Isn't that strange? A father to want his son condemned to greatness? What selfishness that must be."

Some nights, like this one perhaps, when he was more than halfway through a bottle of Jack Daniels, he wished that someone could see it all for what it was. The part of the story about him leaving Karen when she was pregnant that no one mentions is how much it had hurt him, mostly because they don't think it did. Didn't anyone see why he had to push Nathan the way he did, protect his career the way he did? He had lost Lucas, the second he left a pregnant Karen. He couldn't let Nathan end up just as unhappy, riddled with a million questions 'what if'. No matter the cost.

* * *

The stars were out and she didn't think that he'd have gone to the river court this late at night, not by himself maybe, after what had happened. So she'd gone to the roof of the diner, where they had a putt putt course of their own making, hoping to find him there. But he wasn't. Karen said he wasn't home yet, she didn't sound worried, or maybe she did. Haley could barely think straight about it.

Her heart was hurting so terribly at how Lucas must be hurting. His explosion in the hallway hadn't offended her so much as it had given her a window into how Lucas must be, he'd told her a lot with that, it came with the territory of being a best friend. Ever since she was eight, ever since she'd, according to legend told Karen,

"Oh, it's just you two? Well I come from a big family. I think you need me more." And had made herself into Lucas' surrogate little sister.

"Where are you Lucas?" She asked quietly, out loud and to no one in particular. She sighed heavily, flipped off the lights and stepped back down the stairs into the quiet and empty cafe to make sure everything was in order, close up, and go home.

* * *

The car came to a stop, the headlights dimmed and squinting, Lucas could make out that a blonde girl driving a black convertible had pulled up. He turned his back to her, dribbled the ball twice with his right hand before sending it arcing towards the rim, settling through the basket. Maybe it was coincidence, after all.

"So you're the famous Lucas Scott." The girl's voice cut through the night, the silence of the bouncing basketball's echoes across the water. Lucas sighed, apparently it wasn't coincidence. He turned slowly, leaving the basketball where it was, rolling off the court into the grass around the base of the basket.

He looked at her, his blue eyes fixed on her in the night. He recognized her as his brother's cheerleader girlfriend. Granted, the black leather jacket and the Led Zeppelin t-shirt she was wearing with an acid wash pair of jeans didn't fit with his picture of what a cheerleader dressed like, but it didn't matter. The more important question being of course, what was she doing out here, this late, talking to him?

"You're just as big as jerk as he is, you know." She said, coolly, her jaw set firmly with fire in her eyes. She of course meant Nathan, the only other 'he' that anyone in high school might associate Lucas with, without proper clarification. That got him angry and he took a step towards her then,

"Oh yeah? How do you figure that, you don't even know me." She set her hands on her hips,

"And you don't know Brooke, but you made her feel like crap with your Thomas Jefferson and your big ideals of right and wrong. You're just like him, and gahh" she stopped, shaking her head and wringing out her hands,

"You make me so mad, just like he does. He shows off on a basketball court and you show off in school. It wasn't right what they did to you at school, but you didn't fight either. You're not some martyr, you're just like us. Just like him. You could have fought."

He was quiet for a few moments as he remembered the girl he'd sat with in the nurse's office, the girl who'd asked him why he'd done it, the girl who'd kissed his cheek before she left. He looked up from the ground, back to the angry blonde that was challenging his whole outlook on things, without even introducing herself,

"I'm sorry about your friend." He said quietly, Peyton had raised up her right hand and was about to get into him again with a forceful thrust of her hand when he softly apologized and she stopped,

"Oh. Um, thanks. I mean, you shouldn't be apologizing to me, but her, but she's not here, and she doesn't know I'm here, so, thanks." She rambled quickly, suddenly disarmed by his surrender. He nodded and walked away from her to go grab his basketball off of the ground.

When she realized that he was grabbing the basketball, and that his apology had been his goodbye she asked one more question,

"Why didn't you fight back?" He kept walking for a few more steps, off the basketball court and onto the path that led to the street from there before he turned and looked at her for a long moment,

"It wouldn't have changed anything…" And then he was gone, his form no longer illuminated by the street lamps, Peyton Sawyer was left alone on the river court. She sighed, shook her head and walked back to her car.

* * *

Her eyes were red from crying. She and Keith hadn't fought like that in ages, or ever, it seemed. It had been about basketball, of all things. Basketball. She had a far-away look in her eyes, it held so many pent-up memories for her, since she had been a teen-ager she had associated it with Dan Scott, her old high school boyfriend, Lucas' father.

Of course, the word father had to be used loosely, because Dan had never really wanted Lucas. She took another deep breath, because despite everything Keith had said about how it would be good for Lucas, and good for her even, she shook head again, the thought was ridiculous, she felt like if she even talked to Lucas about him playing basketball, it was like giving him to Dan, which she just couldn't stomach. She'd been heartbroken, just weeks before they'd been talking about how happy they would be, but then she'd gotten pregnant and everything changed.

Everything had changed for her then, and she'd tried to tell herself that it was for the best, that it would be good for Lucas for his father to pursue his basketball career, because even if he and Karen weren't together, Lucas would benefit from that. But then Dan had given up basketball, gotten married to another woman and been a father to the other woman's son, Nathan.

Nathan Scott who was in the local news everyday it seemed. Nathan Scott who everyone knew was supposed to lead the Ravens to state this year and the next, Nathan Scott who was supposed to live up to all the glory his father had missed out on. Was that what Keith wanted for Lucas? That life, all the pressure? And what about Dan? He'd get involved, wouldn't he? She didn't want Lucas to have to deal with Dan, he was just a boy, it wasn't fair to him.

She held a tissue to her nose and blew, and set it down beside her on the front steps of her porch, remembering something that Keith had said to her earlier that night,

"Karen, watching Lucas play basketball, it's like poetry. It comes to him so naturally. He deserves the chance to know how good he really is."

It made her cry all over again. Naturally? He certainly didn't inherit his basketball skills from her, so that meant that a part of Lucas was from Dan, maybe a part of Lucas WAS Dan, and that's what scared her the most. She loved Lucas, more than anything, and she had loved Dan once too. She didn't want Lucas to be sucked into that world, what if that was the key, the trigger into making him more like his father?

There were too many what ifs. She sniffled, thinking about how Lucas had discovered his half-brother, at a basketball camp. She'd had to come pick him up two days early, because they'd been making fun of him, calling him a Bastard. She saw how Keith and Dan were with each-other; at least Lucas and Nathan didn't talk to each-other. Of course, with what had happened at school, maybe they did talk too much already. Wouldn't joining the basketball team make that worse?

"You know, basketball didn't make me evil. 'course, I wasn't any good at it, so maybe that had something to do with it." He'd said, and she hadn't then, but it made her laugh now. It was just a game, and a game that Lucas loved. How could she keep him from that? When she'd gone to pick up Lucas from the basketball camp, she'd ran into Dan. Lucas had seen, she and Dan had an argument about him, about Nathan, about everything it seemed and poor Lucas had seen it all.

The next week he'd told her that he didn't want to play anymore. That was when he had quit organized sports, even football. He always said it was because they weren't fun anymore, but she knew he still went down to the river court every-day to play with his friends. When she asked him about it, he always said,

"I'm just playing 'cause it's my friends, Mom." Had he been protecting her, all these years, instead of the other way around? Had he only quit basketball because of what he'd seen that day, between her and Dan?

* * *

He came in the side door that led directly to his bedroom, knowing that it was late and that he didn't want to disturb his mother if she was already asleep. His great failure, of course, was expecting his mother to have gone to sleep before he'd gotten home. She was sitting in his bedroom, at the foot of his bed, a glass of wine on the night stand next to his bed, mostly empty.

"I've been worried about you, Lucas." She started as he stood in the doorway, his book-bag over one shoulder, his blue gaze downcast as he stepped the rest of the way inside and closed the door behind himself. He was silent and set his book-bag down by the open door to his closet, keeping his silence as long as he could.

"Haley told me about what you said to her, when she tried to talk to you." Karen continued, her heart breaking for her son, it tore her all to pieces, that she hadn't been able to protect him. Still more silence from her teenage son, and she sighed heavily, maybe she had made him this way. There was so much wrong in her life that she had always kept quiet about, maybe Keith had been right, maybe teaching her son to hide hadn't been the best thing for him.

"Mom, I'm ok. I just…" He shrugged then, taking a seat next to her on the edge of his bed.

"Look, it happened and it's over. Jimmy is ok. The police took care of the guys who did it. What more is there to it? What do you want me to tell you?" Karen sighed and leaned over, putting her arms around her son, holding him tight in a hug. She pulled back and kissed the side of his head,

"Just tell me if you're really alright, or if there's anything I can do. The principal said that you could go see the school counselor if you wanted to." Lucas pulled away from her then and looked back at her with an incredulous expression on his face,

"I'm not crazy Mom, I don't need a shrink." Karen sighed again,

"Okay okay, sorry. I didn't mean that I thought you needed a shrink, but sometimes people have a hard time dealing with stuff like this. It wasn't normal, what happened to you Lucas. It's okay if you're upset about it."

"If it's so okay, why doesn't everyone keep asking me about it?"

"We're all just worried, Lucas. Me, Haley, Keith. Everyone, we're all worried. I just don't want it to change you, you're perfect just the way you are." She sighed then, and looked down at her hands which she'd moved to her lap,

"What's wrong?" Lucas asked quietly,

"Keith..." She sighed, raising a hand up and wiping a tear from her cheek. The thought of it still broke her heart, but Keith was right, she had to give Lucas the choice.

"Is he ok? What happened?" Karen shook her head, holding a hand up for Lucas to wait.

"He's okay, nothing's happened to him, Lucas. He asked me to talk to you about something."

"Talk about what?"

"Basketball." That threw Lucas for a loop, he had a questioning look on his face and he raised his hands up in a 'what gives' fashion, waiting for his mother to explain.

"He wants you to play for the high school."

"He what, wait, if he wants me to play for the high school, why didn't he talk to me himself?" Karen sighed,

"Well, he thought it would upset me if he talked to you first, and I told him that I wanted to talk to you about it." Karen explained, closing her eyes for a moment as she thought about Keith had told her,

"I know some days you wake up and you haven't stopped dreaming. I know Lucas is everything you say you want in life, but if you're honest with yourself, you have to know that you wanted more, you could have had more if you had just gone for it. Don't make Lucas have that. He only gets one chance at this."

"Does it upset you?"

"I think you're asking the wrong person, Lucas. I love you. And I'm so proud of who you've become, but I think I wouldn't be doing you a service to tell you what I want. I don't want you to make this kind of decision for me, or for anyone else but yourself. You're growing up Lucas, and soon you'll be going off to college and living your life and you need to be happy with who you see in the mirror, you need to be happy with your path. So the question, Lucas, is what do you want?"

* * *

It bothered him, the attention Lucas had been getting at school the last few days. Normally, if someone got beat up at school, no one looked at them like they were somehow better for it, the teachers didn't reference it politely, even compliment the victim for their actions. But then of course, usually the person losing a fight was one of the two that started it. Maybe in a way Lucas had started it by standing up for his friend. But really Jimmy had.

_Standing up for me_, Jimmy thought ruefully and not without a considerable measure of self-loathing. Most people his size and composition weren't exactly fans of the mirror, but he spent a lot of time in front of it, hating himself, critiquing himself, trying to find out what was so wrong about him that everyone hated him. Well, maybe not everyone. He obviously had at least one friend, two if he counted Mouth, but why? Was it pity? It made him mad to think about it. Tall, talented and good looking Lucas Scott, slumming to stand up for poor, fat frumpy Jimmy Edwards.

_Those were supposed to be my bruises. _He couldn't help but think, as he sat in the home room class that he shared with Lucas, Mouth and Skills. He was sitting in a back corner of the room, where he had just enough of an angle to be able to see about half of the hero's face. Further complicating matters was his own inability to even talk to Lucas after the event, he'd only seen the beginning of the attack - Mouth had been dragging him and his broken glasses away from the scene as fast he could, and so most of what happened, Jimmy heard about after the fact.

_The bruises don't even make him look bad. _He thought as he fervently ground his pencil into nothing, drawing and re-drawing a series of lines on the last page of his spiral notebook, glancing down every few moments to make it look as if he was doing something other than just staring at Lucas. He was having a hard and confusing time with his feelings, obviously he couldn't talk to Lucas ever again. How do you say, _Thanks for saving me, but I hate you for it?_ It didn't go away, the feeling that no one cared about him.

No one asked him how he was. No one asked him if he was okay. No one told the prettiest girl in school to take him to the nurse's office. _I HURT TOO. _Sometimes it hurt so bad, that he didn't think he'd be able to breath. His chest would feel tight and his thoughts would get so dark and cloudy, and it was hard to even think. He hadn't done any of his homework since that day, and he didn't think he would again. What was the point? Its not like the teachers would notice, or anyone else for that matter.

"Hey Jimmy?" It was Lucas, his voice broke through the wall. At recognizing who it was, a wall of emotion crashed over Jimmy and maybe everything was going to be okay after all. He looked up from his spiral, his eyes intent on Lucas through his brand new glasses.

"The bell rang bud, we've gotta go. Wake up." Lucas reached over and patted Jimmy on the shoulder before picking up his own book bag and slinging it over his shoulder. He walked away from Jimmy, who just watched him go. He was speechless, a complete one eighty in his thoughts, a tumult in his heart. His dark eyes watched the base of Luke's neck as he walked away, unable to pull his gaze away.

_I hate you._

* * *

It had been an odd thing for him, even stepping in the field house at all, where all the athletic offices and the gym were. An odder thing had been stepping past the double blue doors that led to the locker rooms, walking past the open door to the cheerleader's equipment room where Brooke and the angry blonde girl from the river court both stopped talking and watched as he walked by, stranger still was knocking three times on the open door to Coach Brian "Whitey" Durham's office and waiting to hear and old man's voice tell him to come inside.

"Oh good. I was hoping you'd stop by." Coach Durham said as he got out of his chair and walked around the desk, reaching out to shake Lucas' hand. He reached behind Lucas and pushed the door shut.

"Well, Ms. Hollas told me that I was supposed to go to your office before second period, that you'd told her to send me." Whitey grinned at that, shaking his head with a laugh before sitting back down.

"I did do that, didn't I?" He chuckled,

"Please, Lucas, sit down." The coach gestured towards the chair was positioned in front of his desk. Lucas sat down, his backpack slung in on the floor in front of him, he had something of an inkling about why the coach had wanted to see him after the talk he'd had with his mom last night, but the whole thing didn't really make any sense.

"How are you doing, Lucas? I want you to be honest with me." He gestured with his hands towards the walls of his office.

"It won't leave this office." He continued to explain, settling back into his chair with his black and blue Tree Hill Ravens coffee mug clasped in his hands. Lucas was silent at first, looking uncomfortably down at his hands, then up at the coach, then he leaned back in his chair and looked at the pictures hanging on the wall behind Coach. He hadn't really talked to Haley, or his Mom. Keith hadn't even tried to talk to him about it, the closest he'd come to talking about was with..well, the cheerleader. The girl that the blonde had yelled at him about, Brooke. Someone he didn't even really know. He looked back up at the coach,

"I guess ... that I'm fine. I mean, what else am I supposed to be?" The blonde haired boy asked, his voice soft and unsure. Through a skill developed over a long thirty three years of managing adolescent boys and all their emotional hang ups and difficulties and growing pains, Whitey simply nodded and kept his mouth shut just a little bit longer, knowing that with that much already out of him, the truth would come out if he was patient. Lucas swallowed, suddenly more uncomfortable than he had been a minute ago,

"What's your angle?" He asked then, looking at the older man, making eye contact and holding it. The coach took in a deep heavy breath, he had been expecting this. The thing that people always forgot about teen age boys was that at the end of they day they just wanted to know that it was okay, that no matter how tough or cool they thought they were, they wanted to know that whatever it was, it was okay with you. That they could trust you, rely on you. It was this keen understanding of teenage boys that had made Whitey such an institution at Tree Hill. _More than basketball, _he remembered telling his beloved Camilla. To Luke's question, Whitey simply shook his head,

"Honestly, I'd like for you to play for me. I've got some holes in my lineup, and I've been told you can play. Your father..." And Lucas cut him off there, his voice cold with a current of fury.

"He's not my father." Whitey gave him a long, hard stare.

"Do you remember what I said to you the day you got beat up?" Lucas shook his head.

"You're not being honest with yourself about him, Lucas. He IS your father. You DID get beat up at school by four idiots, and you AREN'T okay." Whitey finished his statement then, shrugging his shoulders,

"And that feeling in the pit of your stomach, that's eating away at you, it won't go away until you're honest about it." Whitey leaned forward and set his coffee mug down on the desk in front of him, looked down at the floor between his legs and then turned his attention back to Lucas. The boy was sitting silently in his chair, looking down at his feet, it looked like.

"Your father played for me and he wasn't ever honest with himself, about what he wanted and I believe he's paid for it his whole life, he's been a lesser man for it. I know its hard at your age, the whole world in front of you and nothing makes sense and it all seems so important, can't hardly decide what direction to go in. Can I ask you a question, son?" Lucas nodded weakly.

"Why did you do it, really?"

"Honestly?"

"Preferably son."

"I didn't even think about it. I don't know why I did it. They were messing with Jimmy, I was there, I told them to stop and then it all just happened." Whitey nodded to Luke's explanation, taking a deep breath before he asked his next question,

"And so how do you feel about it?"

What Lucas hadn't told anyone was that he hadn't been able to really sleep since it happened. That he nearly jumped anytime someone even did so much as step towards him. As big and tough as he thought he was, what happened to him changes people, and sometimes it leaves a permanent mark that never really leaves a person. It took him a few long moments of staring at the space between his hands as flexed them out on his lap before he quietly uttered,

"Scared." The old man with the black whistle looped around his neck nodded gently, giving the boy some silence to buoy the difficult revelation he'd just made. Whitey knew it took a lot for a teen-age boy to admit something like that, as tough as they all had gotten nowadays. People always seemed to forget that as much as they looked like men, they were still just boys, and he'd known a lot of angry and confused young men, enough to recognize one when he saw one.

"I don't want you to be scared anymore, Lucas. And I think we might be able to do something about that." The young man had started crying now, just a sniffle at first. His eyes were read, his nose was runny and when the Coach looked at him and recognized it, he just nodded,

"It's okay son. I told you, nothing leaves this office." Lucas took a big swallow, wiped his face dry with his right hand and pinched the bridge of his nose for a moment, before dropping his hand and looking back to Coach,

"So what do you want me to do, Coach?" The coach smiled then, and leaned down behind his desk and grabbed a blue trimmed with black duffel bag, with **_Tree Hill_ _Ravens_** printed in white horizontally on the side. He set it on the desk between them, the implications of what were inside quite obvious. A jersey, team practice gear. A choice.

"I want to give you a choice, Lucas, and its a choice that every man has to make at some point in his life. Fear is everywhere, and being afraid doesn't make you any less of a man, its what you do with that fear that makes you as a man, as a human being. I can give you a shot at the team, a jersey, and teammates. But it has to be what you want, because it won't be easy. I want the next fight you're in, Lucas, to be one of your own choosing." The coach explained what he was offering to Lucas and then leaned back in his chair, allowing for it to settle in.


	4. I'll Get You Through It Nice And Slow

Author's Note - I really liked how the flow of the first part of this chapter went. I think I did a decent job of catching the faster and wider pace of a television show with it, shifting from point of view to point of view. The last scene sort've surprised me, I hadn't planned on it. It did give me the idea for an interesting scene for chapter five, so stay tuned!

Chapter Four

_"Accept the things to which fate binds you, and love the people with whom fate brings you together, but do so with all your heart."_

- Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (121-180AD) Roman Emperor, Philosopher

He was tall, muscular but not bulky. Dark haired with fair skin. He moved with the self assurance and grace that went along with being a star athlete. Everything seemed to come naturally to him. If he hadn't been pushed towards basketball as a child, it might have been the star quarterback or pitcher in another life, he was just that kind of person. A natural. And indeed, while there was a natural aptitude for sports, people often missed the frame for the picture. For every shot he made in front of the Tree Hill faithful, he had made another thousand just like it under the punishing and harsh gaze of his father, who never let him miss a practice, never let him accept anything less than perfection.

Nathan Scott had money, fame of the high school variety, good looks and the blonde cheerleader girlfriend. To some, he had everything. Perfection, even. There weren't many boys at Tree Hill High that wouldn't trade places with him in a heartbeat were some twist of fate to afford them the opportunity, and maybe they would be happy. Or perhaps they wouldn't, victim of the same perfection that plagued Nathan's life. He had been afforded every opportunity, every expensive and intensive basketball camp, all the in home equipment any work-out buff would envy, a father who insisted that sport's come first, even. All the result of a random stroke of birth, luck even, the only price to be paid was of course, perfection.

And perfection is a difficult master to please for any man, much less a sixteen year old boy. His father hardly even missed any practice, today being one of those rare occasions. He never missed a game, and he was always there to critique, a venerable master of the sandwich method, except it was usually one compliment hidden between whole grain slices of criticism. It was the wedge between them, the proverbial elephant looming large in their usually empty home. A father with only one very simple demand, perfection, and a son who only wanted to please.

He looked up from the floor, almost sensing the basketball hurtling his way, passed by newly promoted to varsity teammate, Tim Smith, he took one step towards the basket with his left foot, then pivoted hard away on his right, the ball passed smoothly between his legs as he got around the awkwardly lanky sophomore assigned to guard him this practice. A moment later the ball softly careened from the backboard into the net, and he jogged back across the court to play a semblance of defense. That same sophomore brought the ball down-court, and just a few feet past mid court, Nathan challenged him. Bottled up by Nathan's longer arm's and much faster feet, it was only a moment before Nathan's hand snaked in and slapped the ball away.

Sprinting down the court with no one left to beat, he raised up halfway through the paint and slammed the ball through the hoop with both hands, hanging on the rim for a moment longer than prudent, before dropping back to the hardwood. His father had warned him about this, that morning. Of course his first concern had been making sure that Nathan's wasn't suspended from the team for his part in things, and then he had been outraged that his former teammates had been arrested and kicked off the team. It had then made its way to how Nathan was supposed to win state and woo college scouts under double and triple coverage all season. _Great players make great plays, don't they Dad?_ He'd bitterly stated as he'd walked out the door to head to school that morning.

The big double doors to the practice gym opened and everything seemed to get quiet for a moment, the sophomore standing under the basket with the basketball in his hands didn't move inbound the ball as his attention was caught by the sudden opening of the doors. A tall, not quite as muscular as Nathan but still athletically built, blonde young man wearing the blue jersey and blue shorts practice uniform of the Ravens stepped into the gym, the doors shutting with a double thud behind him. The sophomore, dribbling the ball now shot right past Nathan as his eyes were locked on the new arrival,

_You have got to be kidding me._

* * *

The cheerleaders usually had practice that was halfway done by the time the basketball team took the court for their afternoon practice, and today was no exception. The team had their backs to the basketball court, and Brooke had her back to the bleachers and was leading the team through the routine they were putting together for the Classic, which would be coming up in several weeks.

"Ready, ok!" She started, bringing her hands together for the start of the cheer at almost the same moment that the double doors to the gym opened with a thunderous weight, and the moment seemed surreal, almost as if it were out of a movie. Lucas Scott, the tall blonde boy and his Thomas Jefferson quotes had just walked into the practice court in Tree Hill Ravens basketball gear. The other cheerleaders has stopped, mostly because Brooke had stopped. They turned and looked slowly at what she looking at, and Peyton even took a step towards her and waved a hand in front of her face,

"Hey, earth to Brooke Davis."

* * *

The dark haired boy looked to the coach, shock and anger lit up on his face,

"What is he doing here?!" The old Coach blew his whistle to get everyone's attention, before ignoring Nathan's question and looking to the late coming Lucas,

"Glad you could make it son. Turn your jersey the other way, you're practicing with the second string at shooting guard. Hurry up."

* * *

He didn't say anything, looked around the gym for a moment, his blue eyes settling on Nathan finally, before reaching down and grabbing the bottom of his jersey with both hands and lifting it up over his head taking it off. He turned it inside out, the jersey being reversible, to where the white part was showing and almost as quickly pulled it back down over his head.

The coach's voice cut through the almost theatrical entrance, the cheerleaders had completely stopped practice on account of his arrival, and while not everyone knew that Nathan and Lucas were brothers, EVERYONE knew that Lucas had been the boy ganged up on by the four basketball players who were no longer Ravens.

"Alright, white team. Your ball. MOVE!" A taller, muscular junior with shaggy brown hair passed the ball into Lucas from the baseline, before jogging down the court past him. The court felt foreign, the attention a bit much, but the basketball? It felt right.

_A fight of your choosing._

* * *

It happened without thinking about it when he took off his shirt. The older Scott brother had the body to go with his quote, Brooke couldn't help but notice. The way he'd walked into the court late like that, the way he'd just slung his shirt off when the coach told him to in front of everyone, it reminded her of how he'd walked up to the bullies in school the week before. He had a presence. She caught Peyton watching her bite her bottom lip and stopped herself, shaking her head and trying to get herself back in focus. Boys didn't make her feel this way. Sure, cute boys caught her attention. Sure, she had crushes, but this seemed different. She was always in control of herself and didn't get distracted like this.

"Brooke? The routine?" Peyton asked, giving her a questioning look before looking to the other girls and getting their attention back on Brooke and the routine they were supposed to be learning.

* * *

_Shooting Guard? That's my position. No way Bastard._

They weren't running a full court press but that didn't stop Nathan from running to guard Lucas, a malevolent intensity etched across his features, a level of effort that would seem difficult to sustain. Lucas pressed the ball to his right, Nathan moved his feet, the squeal of the Nike tennis shoes deafening. The ball crossed between Lucas' legs as he switched hands and challenged Nathan to his left and was rebuffed again.

"You ain't going nowhere. Pass it!" Nathan breathed out, his knees bent and his body dropped low in a crouch as he kept himself between Lucas and the rest of the court.

* * *

Whitey watched Nathan sprint to guard Lucas, saw the intensity, the fistfight just waiting to happen and had the thought that he should blow his whistle and insist that Nathan play the defense that was called and allow practice to continue the way it was supposed to.

But he also had the sense that maybe, just maybe, this needed to happen. So he didn't blow his whistle. _Yet._

* * *

He had never actually played against Nathan before. For that matter, on the river court, he had never played anyone of Nathan's caliber, and in a sense inherent in elite athletes, he recognized another one. This wasn't Junk Moretti guarding him by any means. He crossed the ball between his legs again, took a short step to his right, hesitated... and there it was, Nathan had gone too far to stop Lucas when he changed directions.

With a quickness that Nathan didn't expect, the ball crossed again and Lucas was past him - driving into the paint.

* * *

It was Peyton's turn to be distracted. She saw the difference in Nathan almost immediately. The cheerleaders had given up on the rest of their routine, you'd have to have not been there, to not realize that something significant was occurring. her breath caught in her throat as Lucas made his way past Nathan.

Could someone be better than Nathan?

* * *

He recovered like only the great ones can and got in Lucas' hip pocket, forcing him from his drive to the basket. The rest of the players made space, moving around them in the appearance of a basketball practice, the appearance trying to get open for Lucas to pass one of them the ball, but that wasn't going to happen.

Lucas switched to his left hand and Nathan found his opening, his hand slicing in and slapping the ball away from his half-brother. It went bouncing away from Nathan's basket towards Lucas' side, and they were looked in a foot race after it. Arms pumping furiously as his shoes barely touched the hardwood, he reached out his right hand and caught the ball as it bounced up and seamlessly was dribbling the from the top of the key to the basket.

* * *

Nathan had the ball and was about to score. He ran as hard and as fast as he ever had after him, and when Nathan started to raise up to bank the basketball off the backboard and into the net, Lucas left the ground right behind him, his right arm wheeling around and slamming the ball to a hearty THUD, pressed against the backboard, stopping the shot.

His knees hit Nathan's back first, as Nathan landed and Lucas came down right behind him, the boys crashing into the ground tangled up in each-other.

* * *

There is a moment that almost any parent will describe as the _'ohnosecond'_. A toddler has just spilled his cup. You've just woken the sleeping newborn after it took five hours and a hundred rounds of 'Mary Had a Little Lamb' to get them to sleep. You've just let given your wife the wrong answer when she asked what you thought of her dress or you're watching the nacho cheese drip from your burrito onto your white dress shirt. The parent will continue to explain that in this moment, everything seems to fade and the epicenter of this phenomenon turns into the only thing in the world. Some parents will even go so far as to argue than in this _'ohnosecond', _there is an opportunity, albeit a faint one, to remedy the situation.

You can catch the falling Dora the Explorer cup of juice. You can quietly rub a back and soothe a baby back to sleep before the baby's own crying wakes it up. You can tell your wife that its a beautiful dress and you can't wait to rip it off of her and throw your hand under the escaping cheese and lick it off your hand instead of scrubbing, no wait, _dabbing, _it off of your white dress shirt. This doesn't always happen, and sometimes you don't realize that you're in the _ohnosecond_ until its too late, and it most certainly has a **Use By** date.

Whitey will later think to himself that he'd seen this coming and could have prevented it with a blow of his whistle not even a minute prior, and he'd remind himself that things don't always look the same in the rear-view mirror as they do coming up on the windshield.

* * *

Everyone was watching, and everyone saw Nathan push Lucas up off of him and then roll to his feet as Lucas got to his. Everyone also saw the first punch he threw, a big ranging right hook intent on smashing across Lucas' still bruised face. It almost seemed to some, that Lucas had known this would happen as he raised his left arm and caught Nathan's first punch on his forearm, a loud 'smack' of skin heard as their arms collided.

It first looked like a marquee boxing match as Nathan ducked under Lucas' return volley, and then came up from his crouch, slamming into his fair haired brother's chest, tackling him to the ground.

Brooke's jaw had dropped and her eyes were wide as she watched.

The basketball players, notably the tall boy with the shaggy brown hair were all frozen in place for a moment by the enormity of it. The simply truth that something as complicated as a fist fight can create in people. Most people are uncomfortable with expressions as powerful as a fist fight, because so many people live their life so far from the brink of such abandon, such truth.

Whitey's whistle was blowing with a psychotic urgency as he churned towards that end of the court, where now up off of the ground again the brothers were trading blows in a new volley, first Nathan taking a blow to his cheekbone, sending him reeling backwards. When Lucas pressed in and pushed his advantage, Nathan fended him off with a left handed fist to the jaw, forcing him back.

* * *

Jake Jagielski grabbed Lucas from behind then, pinning his arms to his sides, using his bigger frame and bulk to pull him away from Nathan as Coach Durham arrived in between them, his large form an impenetrable bulwark between the two boys. His glare was fierce, his voice murderous when he spoke.

"That's enough." He blew his whistle once again, loudly and with a volume that filled the room like a mushroom shaped cloud might after a nuclear explosion. He turned slowly then as Nathan stood on side, Lucas on the other, Jake having let go now, sensing that the danger was over. Whitey turned his attention to the cheerleaders,

"Go home girls. Practice is over." With a finality the rendered any argument to the contrary preemptively moot. Next the rest of the basketball team.

"Hit the showers." A moment of silence and still settled over the gym as the cheerleaders, somewhere between frightened by the sudden rawness of human nature they'd all witnessed and the discomfort from seeing someone so honest with their fists, slowly gathered their duffel bags and shuffled with downcast eyes across the gym and to the double doors that led to the locker room hallway, where there's was the first door on the left.

The basketball team stood a moment, waiting for some kind of confirmation. Was this serious? Had that really just happened?

"NOW" Whitey bellowed and just as silently they filtered from the locker room. Jake lingered for a moment longer, looking to Whitey for a second confirmation.

"You too son." Jake gave Lucas and Nathan a long look, and then he too turned his back and headed towards the double doors that led from the gym. Lucas made a turn to begin his own trek to the locker room,

"Oh no, not you two." Whitey Durham's voice hadn't lost any of its apocalyptic tenor. He turned and paced with heavy feet away from the two Scott brothers, before looking up and realizing that a brunette cheerleader and a blonde cheerleader were both still standing where they had been, eyes wide and locked on the Scotts.

"Go. Home." He enunciated very slowly, as the girls were shaken from their stares and nodded their heads weakly, before looking to leave and realizing that the other had also been standing there. Whitey stood with his arms folded resolutely across his chest, watching the last two girls leave. It was an ominous turn he took, facing the boys again. He took a long breath in, and then exhaled slowly before speaking again. _Mind your blood pressure Brian._ He could almost hear Camilla speaking in his ear.

"MAYBE, you're confused. MAYBE, you think this is some kind of circus, with fighting chimps and I'm the lion tamer. WELL LET ME TELL YOU SOMETHING, CHILDREN." He walked towards them, slowly, the look on his face one of derision and disgust,

"I . AINT. WEARING. NO. BOW. TIE...but.." And then, in a conspicuously frightening manner, Whitey smiled. He held up the black lanyard that his whistle was hanging from.

"But I do have a whip. Suicides, on my whistle." TWEEEEEEEEEEEET.

* * *

It was awkwardly quiet in the cheerleader's locker room... Or not. A skinny, average height blonde with an everyday face was talking to another brunette about Lucas Scott taking his shirt off, or there was another conversation in the corner of the locker room away from the door about whether or not the new Scott was better than the old Scott. A third conversation was about the biceps on the boy, Jake, who'd broken up the fight.

It could almost baffle the mind that instead of walking away shaken or concerned about the enormity of two brothers fighting so viciously, what it might mean for the team, or them, or just the emotional cost of such an event, a group of hormone crazed teen-age girls would instead be concerned mainly with the topic of hot sweaty boys taking off their shirts and wrestling on the basketball court. Or maybe it isn't quite so baffling.

There was an awkward silence in the locker room however, and it was near the front of the locker room where the Captain's locker was, and her best friend's. They had ridden to school together, and so it was a more awkward drive in Peyton's black convertible to Brooke's house, where as Brooke was opening the door to get out, Peyton looked up from the steering wheel,

"You can't like him." Caught off guard, Brooke left the door open but didn't stand yet, turning her head slowly back to Peyton, her voice soft and husky,

"What?"

"Lucas, Brooke. You can't like him. I saw you, in the gym. Nathan's my boyfriend. We're best friends. You can't like someone he hates. How would that even work?" Almost without thinking about it, Peyton rambled on about what she'd seen on her friend's face in the gym and had been suspecting since the night Brooke had talked to her about Thomas Jefferson, she'd Googled the quote on the internet that night, after Brooke had gone home.

"I.." Caught again, Brooke hesitated. Peyton sighed,

"Why him, Brooke? He's not rich. He isn't cool. He doesn't party. How is he _your_ type?!" _Your_ said with a weight and an emphasis that maybe, later, Peyton would consider an accident, that moment when you have the advantage but then in your charge run off of the cliff. Brooke stood up out of Peyton's car, stepped away and slammed the door shut. She leaned over the side of the car, and in her soft, husky but now pointed voice asked,

"Why Nathan? He's rich. He's cool. He parties. He's a complete and total jerk and doesn't care about anyone else at all." And then she turned and walked with a purpose away from Peyton and to the red front door. It left Peyton alone in her car, watching Brooke walk away, regretting her words already. She breathed out and put her hands back on the steering wheel, realizing that she'd been shaking. She reached her hand down, putting the car back into gear and as the car began to pull away from the curb she had the inescapable thought of,

_Why Nathan?_

* * *

Every spring or summer, sometimes, Whitey would attend a coaching clinic, and in more rare years, he would give a coaching clinic at Tree Hill High. It shouldn't be described as a new fad, but the day of the tough as nails, salty old coach(of any sport) is rapidly fading, replacing by the educated and smarter than the next guy coach. At the clinics, a common topic is the subject of conditioning. How much, how it should be done, should it be used as punishment, or should you only condition with high tempo practices, or with drills that simulate the sport, instead of conditioning to condition.

Whitey would attend the class, or talk from the bullet points about the value of not using conditioning as a punishment, the dangers inherent in using it in that fashion, what purpose after all, could running just to run have, when you were coaching basketball, not track or country. Later, he'd always shake his head and chuckle about it. Clearly, the new age coaches didn't quite grasp that the higher purpose of coaching was to make the boys into men, or at least better boys than they were, and it was Whitey's firm, nearly religious, conviction that running built character.

Or it at least made two knuckleheads too tired to keep fighting. He looked at his watch. It had been an hour and fifteen minutes since he'd started blowing his whistle. Once both had finished one suicide, the whistle would invariably blow and set them on the next. Whitey knew that anger and competition were good motivators, so at first all the repetitions had been ran with urgency, good speed and effort. Now, an hour and fifteen minutes later, it was barely more than the boys picking their feet up and setting them down, slowly crouching down at the other end of the court, tapping the line, jogging back and then going to the opposite free throw line, then to the three point line, then half court and so on. Then all over again!

Lucas and Nathan stumbled through the baseline one more time and Whitey blew his whistle once, which got both boys, already bent over and breathing heavily, drenched in sweat to look up, and then put their heads back down and start the next repetition, before he blew it twice again in short succession, the end of the lesson. Almost as fast, both of them were bent over, hands on their knees, sweat blurring their vision and their lungs craving a full breath.

His voice took a softer tone now, when he waited almost a minute before speaking, giving the boys a chance to catch their breath.

"I wish I could say I'm surprised, but I'm not. I am disappointed in you. Both of you. Nathan, you're being a fool. First, he's your brother. Second he's good. Third you've lost the rest of your starting lineup, so if I were Nathan Scott I'd be happy that someone was on the team that can keep some of the pressure of of me, but oh no, you can't see past your nose." He exhaled and shook his head,

"And you, Lucas Scott. I thought you were different. I told you I wanted you to pick your next fight, and I thought that meant that you'd pick a good one, like helping the team win state, or making friends with your long lost brother, or at least proving to yourself that you can actually play this game, but I guess I was wrong." He turned and walked away from them then,

"You two idiots have conditioning tomorrow at zero five. Don't be late. Hit the showers. Not each-other." And then he walked off the court, through the double doors that led to the locker rooms and his office.

* * *

His legs were on fire. Every step hurt. Basketball at the river court usually stopped when people got tired, and being the most natural athlete of the bunch, Lucas was usually the last to get tired, so while this was a familiar feeling back from when he'd played organized basketball as a much younger boy, it was also a mostly forgotten feeling. He had the looming feeling that his legs wouldn't have forgotten come the morning.

Who did that punk think he was? Not even bothering to shower, he had grabbed his backpack with his school clothes and the one book he'd resigned himself to taking home to actually study, and stormed out of the locker room to the parking lot where his Father was waiting in his black suburban. He opened the passenger door and threw himself into the seat, his backpack slung onto the floorboard. Turning the key in the ignition and looking over at Nathan, Dan asked,

"How was practice son?"

A small ambush was waiting for Lucas after he showered, changed, locked his locker, picked up his green book-bag, slung it over his shoulder and walked through the empty hallway that led out of the Brian Durham Fieldhouse. Skills, Junk, Mouth and Jimmy were all waiting, outside. It had of course already made through the cell phone facilitated Tree Hill grapevine, the story of Lucas Scott's first practice as a Raven and the fight.

"They kick you off the team yet, dawg?" Skills first, then followed by Mouth holding up his tape recorder,

"We're here now with river court legend and newest member of the Tree Hill Ravens basketball team, Lucas Scott, after his first practice with the team. How was it?" His answer was answered with a long stare and one shake of his head,

"C'mon Mouth. And no, I've got practice again at five in the morning. So I've got to get going."

"Oh, okay Luke. Hey you need a ride? I've got my mom's car." It was Junk this time, obviously everyone present had ridden with him from home back to school to meet Lucas after practice was supposed to have been over. After a moment's consideration,

"No thanks. I'm just gonna walk." He looked around,

"Its nice out. I need to clear my head. Go on without me guys." Mouth and Junk both nodded, at once unsure of and uncomfortable around their friend. They didn't say it and maybe no one else did, but it already seemed like something had changed, starting with Lucas getting beat up like that in school. A wall was going up between them, and no one seemed to know what to do about it. Skills looked at Lucas with for a long moment, with a questioning look on his face.

"Sure you're alright man?" He asked, Lucas nodded again.

"Yeah, I'm fine." Skills shrugged,

"Alright then. Let's go guys." He looked to the other three and turned and started walking back to Junk's mom's car. Mouth and Junk both mumbled their own 'bye Luke's, and then turned to follow Skills. It left Jimmy Edwards standing alone as the other three had started walking away, he took a deep breath and found the courage for,

"Are you okay, Lucas?" Lucas tilted his head to the side and gave Jimmy a long, ponderous look. Then he nodded,

"Yeah..." He took a moment before asking in reply,

"Are you?" Jimmy's lip started to quiver and Lucas' eyes widened, suddenly realizing that No, Jimmy wasn't okay and Yes, Jimmy was about to cry.

"Jimmy!" Skills called out from the side of Junk's mom's car, wondering why Jimmy hadn't caught up with them yet. Lucas reached out and put a hand on Jimmy's shoulder before he could turn around to answer Skills, because Jimmy had already started to cry full bore, his whole face shuddering with every breath.

"Go ahead guys!" Luke called out,

"Jimmy's gonna walk with me." He finished, which resulted in another Skill's shrug, sliding back into the passenger seat with Mouth in the back and Junk backing out of his parking spot and the car taking off.

* * *

The tall blonde boy was going to walk the shorter boy with brown hair and glasses home. Jimmy started crying outside the field-house, Lucas gave him a couple of minutes of silence, because every-time he tried to ask a question or Jimmy tried to answer, the boy behind the taped up glasses just started crying again. Once Lucas had gotten Jimmy to start walking home with him, furtively hiding a glance at his watch, he was exhausted and it was getting late and the daylight would be gone soon.

Jimmy Edward lived in the richer part of Tree Hill. Despite what his home might make one think, his family wasn't rich. His father had died when Jimmy was little and the house had been paid for by most of the insurance money and they had lived off the remainder and its interest for the years after that. Perhaps the cruelest irony, his father had worked in information technology, the burgeoning field of the time and would have been sure to be making six figures now, if not better. But cancer wasn't a discriminating killer.

So years ago when a short, pudgy boy with glasses had made his way to the river court and a young Lucas Scott and company had been playing there, the fatherless boy had latched onto the others, in particular the confident and athletic blonde boy who didn't have a dad either. Jimmy hadn't known at the time that Luke's father wasn't dead, but at the time it had reassured a heartbroken little boy that he wasn't alone.

But time can be a terrible thing, and people change over time. The tall, good looking and athletic Lucas just kept getting taller, better looking and more and more of a young man. Growing up wasn't as good to Jimmy, a genetic disposition to weight and an interest in the more sedentary parts of sports, announcing for instance, didn't help him keep up. It was always different Mouth, he was skinny and short. Short was a good excuse. You couldn't help being short, it was genetics. Being fat? No, the cruel judges of middle school had let him know that obviously fat was a choice, and he was a bad person for picking it.

The association with Lucas, Skills, Mouth and Junk had provided a sort of insulation from the worst of it. Bullies are naturally pack animals, but so are friends and last week hadn't been the first time that Lucas or someone else had stood up for Jimmy. It was just the first that someone had paid that kind of price for it, and as complicated as Jimmy's feelings were about it, it continued to confuse him.

On one hand, he loved Lucas for it. Brave, tall and confident Lucas. On the other, he hated him for it. No one cared about Jimmy, the kids didn't get arrested for bullying, they got arrested for violence. None of the teachers or police did anything about they had been abusing him, abusing his feelings, abusing his heart. And so he hated Lucas for the attention, for his talent, for the popularity he already had and would only get more of because he could play basketball.

And perhaps worst of all, he hated himself for hating Lucas. He knew it was a petty and weak thing to do, and it was even a betrayal of sorts, even if he never said anything about it to Lucas. _How would that conversation go, anyways? Hey Lucas, thanks for taking my ass beating, but I hate you for it because Coach made a pretty girl take you to the gym, and I hear teachers whispering about you when they think we aren't paying attention, oh and by the way, I think its just great that you're on the basketball team. One more thing for you to have that people will notice and talk about. Don't mind me, I'm just going to disappear. Oh wait, no one would notice that either, so why bother? How can I be so fat and no one ever SEES me?_

They hadn't said a word the entire walk, Lucas sensing that Jimmy needed the company more than he needed conversation. He'd stopped crying a few blocks ago, but Lucas hadn't wanted to press the issue. He didn't know what to say. He knew Jimmy wasn't popular, but he had friends, great friends even, him, Mouth, Skills and Junk. He didn't seem like he should be this sad about something, even what had happened. _I mean, if I'm not walking around crying about it, why is he?_

They were almost home when Jimmy finally spoke again,

"Lucas?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm sorry." A pane of silence fell between them, Lucas wasn't sure what to say. Jimmy could see him struggling with it.

"Uh, Jimmy..Its..You didn't do anything."

"I know. I should have. I shouldn't have let that happen." Lucas took a step back and shrugged,

"You couldn't have known, Jimmy. And what was there to do anyway? You'd have just gotten beat up, four against two." Jimmy's shoulders visibly dropped.

"Its not fair." Lucas nodded.

"I know." He reached over and put his arm around Jimmy's shoulders.

"Listen, if you ever need to talk or anything, Jimmy. You know I got you right?" Jimmy nodded, his lip quivering again. He wiped a hand across his face and looked away from Lucas.

He didn't say anything, and when they got to his the mailbox in front of his house, Lucas stopped.

"Do you want to come inside? If my mom's feeling ok, I can ask her to drive you the rest of the way home." Lucas shook his head,

"Its okay Jimmy. Its nice out." Jimmy made eye contact with Lucas and held it for a few moments before he looked away, uncomfortable with his own reflection when he looked at tall and brave Lucas Scott. Jimmy nodded,

"Okay. Bye. Thanks Lucas." And then he turned and walked inside.

"Bye Jimmy." Lucas stood at the end of the sidewalk by the mailbox for several minutes after Jimmy went inside. Something in the corner of his vision caught his eye and he looked up and to the house next door. A teal Volkswagon Beetle was parked in the driveway next to Jimmy's house, but what had caught his eye was someone standing in the second story window, looking out, looking at him. He made what he thought was eye contact for a moment, raised one hand in a wave and then turned to the sidewalk and started the rest of his own walk home.

* * *

In _Charlotte's Web_, E.B White wrote

_"Why did you do all this for me?" he asked, _

_"I don't deserve it, I've never done anything for you." _

_"You have been my friend, replied Charlotte, _

_"And that in itself is a tremendous thing."_


	5. A Lifetime Stuck In Silence

Author's Note - Thanks to Sunshine for catching a continuity error, much appreciated! I think I re-wrote the paragraphs in question in a better fashion that makes it more clear. Thanks again! A little shorter than the others, but this is where I'm going to end chapter five! Keep reading!

Chapter Five

_"Look around / There's no one but you and me."_

- Lifehouse, In Between The Raindrops

He had propped the screen door open, shuffled through the front door and walked past his mother was sitting at the heavy, wooden rustic brown table that held center stage in the formal dining room that was just to your right when you stepped into the atrium of the Edwards residence. His mother was in her 'Sunday Best', as Jimmy liked to call it. She did it from time to time, more so when she was missing his father, she'd cook a big spread, dress up and then make as if everything was grand and that she and Jimmy always had the happiest of times together.

Growing up, she'd always told him not to lie, amongst other motherly-like advice, but he'd figured out some time ago that while these dinners were a sort of lie, they were the alright sort of lie, at least as far as she was concerned. So like a good son, he usually went along with the lie.

"James, you're late for dinner." He hated James. James was his father's name. Technically, it was on his birth certificate too, but she'd never called him James until after his father had died. It always made him feel like he was somehow supposed to replace his father, but he was just a kid. He missed him too, didn't she know that?

"Sorry Mom. I'll go wash up and be right back down." He said quietly, as he walked past the entry to the dining room, took a left and then went up the stairs to his room, his ponderous foot steps echoing through the house. He went through his room into the bathroom that he shared with the guest bedroom, the room his mother always called 'his little brothers', another one of her _okay_ lies. Before the diagnosis, James Edwards and his wife had been trying to have another baby, and after his death, Jimmy's mother had latched onto the idea and refused to let go.

With bags under his eyes, he took off his taped glasses and set them on the bathroom counter and looked himself in the mirror, his dark eyes boring holes into reflection. More conflicted than he'd been even before he'd tried to talk to Lucas this evening, before tall and good looking Lucas Scott had walked home with him in his sobbing silence, before he'd put his arm around poor, sad and fat Jimmy Edwards and told him,

"_I got you."_

_No, Lucas, you don't got me._ Jimmy thought bitterly, still unsure as to whether or not he was grateful to Lucas or if he hated him for everything that happened. He had realized that he didn't hate the boys that had been picking on him, the same boys that beat up Lucas., but he could find himself finding reasons to hate Lucas. The basketball players had just been doing what was normal for them, picking on the loser. Why should he be surprised, why should he be mad at someone who simply following their nature?

He reached for the medicine cabinet that was behind a smaller mirror hanging on the wall, he pulled it open and grabbed a see through orange bottle of pills. He put it in his palm, pressed the other hand to the top, twisted, and defeated the child-safety lock on it and set the bottle down on the kitchen counter. He flattened his palms on the counter in front of him, leaning forward over it with his head down, chin to his chest, staring at the open bottle of pills before him.

* * *

He sat in his study late into the night. He'd brought Nathan home from practice, listened to the story about Lucas' entry onto the court and the ensuring fight. He had reinforced that while Nathan was right to feel singled out and threatened by Whitey, but he was wrong to have started an actual fight. A suspension wouldn't do anything for college chances, and he certainly didn't put it past Whitey to replace one Scott with another. The part of the story that Nathan had told without realizing it, but Dan hadn't pushed him for was this, _Lucas could play._

On one hand, he told himself that he wasn't surprised. He had strong genes, and Lucas had come from him, after all. But it wasn't as if Karen or Keith or anyone else had been pushing Lucas like he had been pushing Nathan, preparing him. Did it mean that the older brother had more natural talent, if he was able to push Nathan like he had without the years spent training under Dan's watchful eye? He wished he had been there. He sighed heavily, took a sip from the glass of wine next to him on a table and then looked down at his left knee. _Trapped._

He knew it didn't make sense. He'd after all, stormed in Whitey's office demanding that he not suspend the boys that had attacked his other son. When he thought about it like that, he hated himself more than he usually did with an additional dose of loathing, but it didn't have to make sense. He'd had choices to make, and he'd made them, and now he had to live with them. It wasn't like he had expected Whitey to say he was going to put Lucas on the team, and even if he'd wanted it himself, its not like he could have just called up Karen Roe and suggested it, much less even talk to Lucas. _My own son._

So what did he do? What was there that he could do? Nathan would hate him if he didn't act on his behalf with this Lucas situation, putting both of them at shooting guard? What was Whitey thinking? Why would he waste Dan Scott's sons in competition with each-other? He was short players, and another Scott leveled that some, so why start only one of them. He wanted to believe that Whitey had some point behind this, some reasoning that made sense to someone other than just one cantankerous old man.

_Whatever game you're playing Whitey, I'm going to figure it out, and I'm going to beat you at it. For my sons. Both of them._

* * *

An old man sitting in a lawn chair in the center of half court at the Brian "Whitey" Durham field-house. Two boys wearing the blue, black and white of the Tree Hill Ravens sprinting to one end, tapping the line, sprinting to the other and then again and again. And again. The old man had a grim look on his face, a Ravens coffee mug clasped between both of his hands as he sat, watching, waiting, _hoping_.

"Come on ladies, hurry up! I've got things to do today!"

Gasping, drenched in sweat, painfully awake before six a.m,

"But Coach, you said we had to run til six thirty." A dark haired Scott protested, rewarded by the coach with a hearty chuckle,

"Oh! So you were listening. Seems I did say that." He nodded and dismissed them with a flip of his hand,

"Well don't look at me! Keep going!"

* * *

He hated riding the school bus. Some days it was the easiest place in the world to get picked on, because there was only one adult around to stop them, and sometimes the bus driver didn't notice, or didn't notice enough to care. So at dinner last night, when his mother had told him that she would take him to school the next morning, he had felt a glimmer of excitement about the next day. No bus ride. _Maybe tomorrow won't be a bad day._

The school bus stopped at the corner down the street every school day at almost exactly six forty five. Old Mr. Galloway who drove the bus was like a piece of machinery when it came to his times. The only things that ever slowed him down were weather and any other acts of God that he saw fit to accommodate his schedule for. So at six forty five the next morning, when Jimmy was still lying in bed and heard the screech of the bus coming to a stop, he just opened his eyes and listened for the sound of the door opening, and then closing again and few moments later when no one was there to get on the bus. He was the only high school kid on this street that rode the bus. Rich kids don't do that, after all.

So after he'd rolled out of bed after being woken by the screeching of the school bus and put on his clothes, brushed his teeth and grabbed his backpack and headed downstairs to wait for his mother. First period didn't start until eight, and so they didn't really have to leave until seven thirty to get there in plenty of time to not be late. He grabbed a doughnut from the Duncan Donuts box on the center of the island in the kitchen before grabbing a seat on the bar style stool next to it.

It was just barely after seven so he wasn't concerned that his mother hadn't come out of her room yet. Its not like she had to get out of the car to drop him off, so she could just drive him in her pajamas.

She was standing in front of a full length mirror in her bedroom, wearing jeans and a form fitting black tank top. Her hair was down and she couldn't decide if she wanted to leave it down or put it up. Up, she finally decided, putting it up in a quick pony-tail, and then she grabbed her red back pack from where it was on the floor by her bed and walked out the door. She went down the stairs, her hand sliding lightly down the hand-rail before stopping by the front door just long enough to call out,

"Bye Mom! Going to school." Her goodbye echoed through the house and for a moment she made as if she was waiting for a reply, _oh that's right, you're never here. Bye Mom!_

It was about seven twenty when Jimmy started to get worried. He left his back pack where it was and went back up the stairs to his mother's room. The door was closed, so he knocked and waited for a few moments.

"Mom? We've got to leave soon, remember? You said you'd take me today." Silence. He knocked again, before he cracked the door open and looked inside. His mother was still in bed, she turned her head slowly as she heard him open the door. He saw an empty bottle of wine on the nightstand on her side of the bed. He had a feeling beginning to knot up in his stomach, the slow and steady realization that his mother wasn't going to be able to drive him to school, that he'd already missed the bus and if he walked he'd be late for sure.

As much as Jimmy hated school, he hated being late to school even more. Being late meant walking through the halls to first period when there was no crowd to hide inside of. When he was likely to get in trouble and end up with detention, come late, stay late in the public school version of justice. Even if he made it to first period without a hall monitor getting him, the teachers always noticed, and so the other people in class always noticed and it was like being on a stage in front of all of them in his underpants.

He couldn't be late! Not after what had happened just last week. He couldn't handle it, couldn't do it.

"Jimmy? Is that you? Mommy isn't feeling well."

"Mom?" His voice heavy with dread, asking the question that his gut already told him the answer to.

"Can you take the bus, Jimmy?" _NO MOM, I CAN'T TAKE THE BUS AND I'M GOING TO BE LATE AND I HATE BEING LATE BECAUSE THEY SEE ME WHEN I'M LATE._

The door closed behind her and she spent a moment with her back to the street, locking the red door behind herself. Then she began the walk down the paved walkway to the drive way where her teal Volkswagon Beetle was waiting. She'd left the top down last night, and was glad it hadn't rained the night before. Last think she'd need was to have to explain to Daddy why she spent thousands of dollars replacing the upholstery in her car.

She heard the door just one house over slam as a short, pudgy boy with glasses and his backpack slung over his shoulders come storming out. He stopped a few feet in front of his own door, turned around and yelled back at the house,

"I HATE YOU!" And then he turned, his eyes cast down at the ground as he looked like he was half running, half pacing down the pavement to the sidewalk.

She hadn't recognized him until the night before, when she'd seen Lucas Scott walking him home. The boy she'd seen in the hallway that day, the boy that Lucas had gotten beat up for? Her next door neighbor. She knew that she'd known his name, but it seemed like years since they had even had so much as a cursory conversation, much less been friends or anything like it. She couldn't put her finger on exactly how it made her feel, not having recognized him, and now not knowing his name, but she knew it didn't make her feel good.

By the time she made it to the driver's side door of her car, Jimmy had made it past his mailbox and was facing away from her, his feet pounding down the sidewalk. She watched him for a long moment, confused and concerned all at the same time. There was something obviously going on, and she glanced at the thin pink watch she was wearing on her left wrist, seven thirty five. She usually made it to school just on the time, sometimes a little bit late, but a girl needed her Starbucks.

"Hey!" She called out after him, he didn't stop, didn't even seem to hear her. She opened the door to her bug and tossed her backpack in the backseat and slid into the driver's seat. She put her key in the ignition and started the car, backing up with and out of the driveway, then taking the car down the street, close to the curb after her next door neighbor.

BEEP. BEEP. She tapped the horn twice and was going along at maybe three miles an hour as she tried to get the boy's attention. He finally looked over when BEEP she honked a third time,

"Hey, do you want a ride to school?" She called out from the, easing her foot down on the break as the boy came to a stop finally. He looked at her, making uncomfortable eye contact, staring at her in silence before nodding meekly. His face was red and she could tell that he had been crying as he'd been storming down the sidewalk. She reached over and unlocked the passenger door, pushing it open. He shuffled over from the sidewalk, off the curb and dropped himself into the passenger seat, his backpack clutched to his chest in his lap.

She raised her eyebrows at him for a moment when he didn't say anything, not even a cursory thank you, and turned her attention to the road as she checked her blind spot and then pulled back out into the street, heading to Starbucks. They were going to be _a little bit late today, _she thought. They rode along in silence until she took a left at an intersection, where a right would have taken them to school. He spoke up finally then,

"Hey, um, school is the other way." Quietly, as if he thought speaking up would end his ride. She looked over at him, smiled that winning Tree Hill Cheer Captain smile,

"Yes, but Starbucks is this way." _But I don't have any money, _he thought, terrified at the soon to come embarrassment. And then it was if she was reading his mind, or it was just her general way with money,

"My treat." Another dazzling smile. He looked down at his watch, seven fifty five. He felt like he was going to puke. They pulled up to the local Starbucks ordering sign and as the voice behind the screen cackled with static welcoming them to Starbucks and asking what they'd like today, Brooke spoke

"I'll have one Iced Cafe Mocha, one venti Pike's Roast, two blueberry muffins and..." She looked over at Jimmy for his order and was answered with a blank, confused face. His family didn't have money, he'd been to Starbucks maybe once in his life and was already so overwhelmed this morning that he couldn't think, she nodded,

"Okay, and one...hmmm..." She thought for a moment.

"And one Iced Vanilla Latte." The voice cackled with the 'that'll be' with the cost and Brooke replied with a cheery,

"Okay." And then pulled right up to the next window, reaching in the center console where her purse was and pulling out Daddy's Visa and handing it over to the Barista. A few moments later out came the drinks and the muffins, which Brooke handed over to Jimmy. Once they pulled away from Starbucks, she reached over and grabbed her mocha from the drink tray Jimmy was now holding next to his backpack and took a sip from it,

"Nothing like a little brewed happiness." She said in her happy, raspy voice.

"Yeah..." He said, a little confused and off kilter about the whole thing.

"You really going to drink both of those?" He asked, she'd ordered three drinks after all. She laughed and shook her head as they crossed the last intersection that would take them to Tree Hill High School.

"No, honey. That one is for your home room teacher when you walk in late." He looked at her again then, surprised and confused,

"But what about your home room teacher?"

"I was going to skip home room today anyways. No big deal."

"Oh." He said quietly, embarrassed and uncomfortable with the kindness she was showing him.

"Can I ask you something?" She said quietly, glancing over at him for a moment as they came to a short stop at a stop sign just before they'd reach the high school's student parking lot. He shrugged,

"I guess."

"I saw you and Lucas last night, outside your house."

"Okay." She sighed then,

"So you're pretty good friends with him?"

"I've known him for a long time." _I love him and I hate him for everything I love, but I don't think you'd understand._

"Does he have a girlfriend?" _And there it is, the reason you're giving me a ride. Lucas. _Jimmy shook his head,

"No." A few moments of silence passed between them as they pulled into the student parking lot, but instead of parking she pulled up the curb closest to the front doors. She looked over at him as the teal car came to a stop.

"I can give you a ride home too, today, if you need one." She offered before she'd really thought about it. He'd be waiting until after cheer-leading practice was over. As he was maneuvering his back pack out of his lap as he opened the passenger door so he could get out he shook his head,

"No that's okay. I'll ride the bus."

"Okay." She said in her soft, raspy voice, her eyes fixated on the boy.

"Hey um," She spoke up again as he stood on the curb with a drink tray and two Starbuck's drinks in hand. He looked down into the car back at her, she sighed.

"Never-mind. Don't forget. The coffee is for your home room teacher. Works every time!" She smiled and then pulled away from the curb, planning to park in the field house parking to hide out in the locker room for first period.

* * *

He looked at the digital clock that was hanging ominously at the end of the hallway that his homeroom class was on. Eight fifteen. Fifteen minutes late. He looked at the drink tray he was holding in his hands, and then down at the blueberry muffin that he'd stuffed in his pocket. He took a deep breath, reached out one hand for the doorknob and then plunged right in.

"Ah, Mr. Edwards! Good of you to join us today." Ms. Hollas, his home room teacher commented as he stepped inside the classroom. Then, with perhaps more suave than he'd mustered his entire life,

"Sorry Ms. Hollas, there was a line at Starbucks." And he walked across the front of the class room, plucked the venti Pike's Roast from his drink tray and held it out to the young, attractive teacher.

"For you." He explained, the teacher looked at him with a sideways smile, before reaching her hand out to take the offering.

"Thank you Jimmy. If you'll please take a seat." Jimmy turned then and looked at his classmates for the first time. This morning, leaving his house late without a ride, this had been the moment he'd feared most, everyone in class watching him come in late and then have to walk past all of them, with all of them paying attention, to take his seat, late. Brooke Davis had been right, it worked every time. There wasn't a word as he moved to the back of the classroom and took his seat behind Lucas Scott and next to Mouth.

The teacher sat back down at her desk, took a sip from the Starbucks cup and went back to grading the papers she had been working on before Jimmy had entered the class room.

"Smooth, Jimmy." Mouth complimented him, reaching over and patting him on the shoulder. Jimmy nodded, uncomfortable with the praise and then looked back down to the side of his desk, opening his backpack and reaching into it for his black spiral bound notebook. With his other hand, he pulled a now somewhat smashed muffin from his pocket.

"So your Mom took you to Starbucks and you didn't get me anything?" Mouth asked, looking up from the calculus worksheet he was reviewing.

"Nope. Brooke Davis." Jimmy said quietly, and while he didn't turn around or ask Jimmy about it, Lucas heard her name and thought about the girl that had been looking down at him from a second story window, and couldn't help but touch his cheek with the tips of fingers, thinking about the kiss she'd left there.


	6. Gameday! Ravens vs Wildcats

Author's Note - Super sorry for the delay in updating. I've had a bit of writer's block with this chapter because its the first I'm starting to do more than foreshadow any Brucas activity, and I really want to get it right. I've been getting a lot of positive feedback about story and so I'm wanting to keep that up. Also, had a class start last week, so got caught up in that. Hope to have the rest of this chapter up by sometime Saturday.

Chapter Six

_"When will you realize / Baby I'm not like the rest?"_

- Demi Lovato, Give Your Heart A Break

Tree Hill is a town like many others across America, and in particular it is like many others when it comes to high school sports. Its truly a peculiar phenomenon, high school sports, that is. For a season, the boys who play a sport are bigger and more important than the millionaires who play on prime time and we see on ESPN, the only big game is the one on Friday night, the only box score that matters the one printed by the local daily.

But the boys who star this season may graduate before the next, and then we'll be learning new names and cheering for new faces, hoping with new dreams of glory. Such is the way of the high school athlete, four years, win or lose, scholarship or no, and then it's all over for most.

Perhaps it is because it is such a fleeting glory, that it is quite so poignant to those within its light. The Nathan Scotts of today, young, handsome, talented and arrogant almost always become the Dan Scotts of tomorrow. That nagging sense of what should have been, the belief in the if I had only, the most fervent desire for a second chance.

What seems to separate the Dan Scotts from the Keith Scotts is one of two things perhaps, the never having it or more importantly, the ability to let it go. High school stardom is like the girl that you just can't stop calling, no matter how many times she's told you its over, for some. For others, it had its time and its place and now its just the past, no matter how colorful or exciting, its time for the next generation of high school basketball players.

When you meet a stage mom, a helicopter parent, the mythical 'tiger mom' or even the Uncle Rico of Napoleon Dynamite fame or worse yet, watch an episode of Toddlers & Tiaras, consider that the adult involved is just as much a victim as their child now is, a victim of the same sport, the same ideas. That same nagging feeling that they weren't good enough, and if they had just done this, or just done that, then it would all be different.

Its that inescapable feeling that if not for one thing, your whole life would be different. What a miserable thing, to be able to point to just one point in time, one fixture in your life and say "If not for this, I would be..." _Everything._

* * *

Basketball practice had normalized itself after the first day and the following morning of suicide wind sprints. Like the mutually assured destruction detente of the Cold War, the realization that Coach Durham had no qualms whatsoever about running them to death, the Scott brothers had come to something of an unspoken agreement. The days between that first early morning marathon conditioning session and Friday morning had seen them arrive for practice, quietly put on their practice uniforms, quietly come out to the court, quietly pass each-other the ball, and quietly developed a certain chemistry on the court that you expect from two highly talented brothers playing the same sport.

It had come with a certain heaviness, the realization that his half brother, the blonde haired illegitimate skeleton in his father's closet being on the basketball team actually made the team better, made him better. He had grown up his whole life overhearing fights between his parents about _your son_ and the _other woman _and _what about Nathan?_ He wasn't sure what to make of it. Didn't know if he was supposed to hate him, didn't know if that's what his parents wanted, or if he was supposed to be his brother, or if they were just supposed to co-exist. He felt threatened, but then he didn't, because his father had picked him, hadn't he?

It was good for Lucas that there was basketball, because that made ignoring all the confusion in his life that much simpler. Walking through school was hard now, because the notoriety he'd gained by first stepping up for Jimmy Edwards, and then getting beat up in his stead had made his simple, head down, just playin' ball at the River Court life impossible to live. He'd been _noticed_, which was cardinal sin for anyone just trying to make it quietly through high school. The more basketball they played, and the way they continued to not talk, he'd almost begun to like Nathan. After all, what perimeter shooter didn't appreciate someone who could penetrate inside and then kick the ball back to a now wide open shooter?

Peyton didn't like what she was seeing in Nathan, it made her worried. After practice he was always too tired to hang out and he always seemed like he was in a bad mood, but wouldn't talk about it. Before, when the only person he'd had to hate was his father, he'd always told her all about it, even when she'd been sick of hearing about it. She and Brooke hadn't talked about Lucas since the night she'd dropped her off after school. They'd talked about nothing they way they often did, she'd talk to Brooke about her troubles with Nathan and Brooke would just listen like she always had, tell that it was all going to be okay, that meant to be would just happen like it was supposed to. _But what if its not meant to be?_

She was used to being alone in a crowd of people, so the invisible wall that had come down between her and P Sawyer the night that her blonde friend had gone all anti-Lucas ballistic on her in the car hadn't been a difficult thing for Brooke to deal with. It wasn't that it didn't upset her or keep her up at night wondering what was so wrong with her and Peyton that a boy she wasn't even dating had come between them like this. She'd spent the week hanging out at Peyton's house after school, talking about nothing, boys, school, other girls and everything else except for anything substantial. The conversation they needed to have didn't happen.

It was also, apparently, impossible to talk to Lucas Scott. They only had one class together, English, and while he was mister smarty pants, knows everything about every writer ever in that class, outside of it he was apparently mute. Not that she'd been brave enough to really try, not after she'd seen him with Haley James, the junior in charge of the school's tutoring system. She was cute, in a nerdy kind of way, Brooke had thought. Her next door neighbor had said that Lucas didn't have a girlfriend, but maybe he just didn't know.

Tuesday, Jimmy Edwards rode the bus to school. Brooke didn't know what time the school bus left, so as she'd sat in her car parked on the curb by Jimmy's mailbox at seven thirty that morning waiting for him to come outside so she could offer him a ride, it occurred to her that the school bus might  
come earlier than she thought, so Jimmy was already gone. Pursing her lips in a halfway frown, she'd pulled away from the curb and gone straight to  
school, no Starbucks even.

She walked through the double-wide doors that led into the school from the student parking lot, her red backpack slung over one shoulder and the usual throng of students milling about in the hallways before the seven fifty five bell would send them all scurrying in one fashion or another to their home room classes to start the school day. She didn't even register for several seconds, staring blankly ahead at the floor as she walked to class when  
Peyton Sawyer approached her,

"Morning B Davis!" The greeting stood still in empty air as Brooke had kept walking, Peyton falling into step beside her, wearing a black leather jacket, skinny jeans and a black Disturbed t shirt. Peyton let the silence linger for several steps before leaning over and bumping Brooke with his  
shoulder,

"Hey you had your coffee yet?" The blonde asked as they turned a corner, tilting her head to the side to look at her friend with a curious glint to her smile,

"Oh what?" Brooke said suddenly, shaking her head for a moment and then looking back over at Peyton,

"Oh, no coffee yet. Ugh." She sighed, and then continued walking in-step with the blonde. Brooke hadn't mentioned a boy in almost five whole days, which was odd, considering it was Brooke Davis, the most popular girl in school. Suffice it to say, there was always a boy.

"Late night?" Peyton asked, probing. Brooke shook her head,

"No, not really." Another short answer, Peyton thought, first Brooke looked half dead to begin with, which wasn't Brooke, and she wasn't talking, which wasn't Brooke, just what was going on? She cut in front of Brooke, stopping her in her path.

"Hey you going to tell me what's up with you, or what?" Brooke looked up at Peyton for a long, silent second before something caught her eye and she looked for a moment over Peyton's shoulder. Peyton turned her head to see whatit was,

Lucas Scott crossing the hallway. She looked slowly back to Brooke, shook her head and stormed off past her down the hallway.


	7. Had To Make A Choice That Was Not Mine

Author's Note - I know I'm getting a little ahead of myself with posting chapters, but I noticed it only says its been updated when you add a chapter, and so for those that have been regularly reading my story I wanted to make sure you saw my note in Chapter 6 about my planned updating schedule, going to try and go back to a little at time, I find that I put too much pressure on myself when I don't just write and update as the story fleshes out in my imagination. I've got what I think is a really poignant idea for chapter 7, so stay tuned!

Chapter Seven

_"The thought of suicide is a great consolation: by means of it one gets through many a dark night." - Friedrich Nietzsche_

**Five years ago. **


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